


Right Between The Eyes

by AoAnimeGeek



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Awkward Conversations, Bad Decisions, Bad Parenting, Basically Leon's Run But With Icarus, Betrayal, Black Character(s), But He Can't Drive, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Support Fish, Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, Exploration, F/M, Fights, First Aid, Fluff, Game: Resident Evil 2, Gunshot Wounds, Healthy Relationships, Horror, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Interracial Relationship, Knives, Leon Is Nice, Leon is a badass, Maps, Mild Gore, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Leon S. Kennedy/Ada Wong, Mutated Zombie Monsters, Not That Scary Tho, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Past Relationship(s), Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Redemption, Revoke His License, Science Experiments, Survival Horror, Talking to animals, The One Sewer Level, Therapy, Threats, Throwing Knives, Touch-Starved, Umbrella Corporation, Weapons, Zombies, kinda slow burn, talking about feelings, well-deserved hugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23591674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AoAnimeGeek/pseuds/AoAnimeGeek
Summary: “Three in the goddamn morning, are you fucking serious? Jesus, you’re twenty-one years old and you can’t even take care of yourself. God, you have me and your father worried-”“I just killed my neighbor.”“-sick! Wait, what?”“I said I just killed my neighbor.”Icarus Castellanos wasn’t one for adventure or mystery, but when her small world is shaken after surviving an attack from her neighbor, her life takes an abrupt turn in a single hour.Now it’s a race against time as Icarus is forced to survive and figure out what the hell is going on with this so-called virus and how the hell her sister is involved. All the while dragging Leon S. Kennedy along for the ride.The clock is ticking and Icarus can only run for so long.
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Original Character(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 25





	1. The Phone Call

**Author's Note:**

> I got bullied into playing the RE 2 Remake and now I'm writing fanfiction. Yay.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Icarus Castellanos.   
> She's traumatized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome. I have no clue what I'm doing. Enjoy.

* * *

**September 29th**

**3:32 am**

**_Bzzt_**. ** _..Bzzt…Bzzt….Bz-_ **

_Click._

“Icarus? This better be good! Do you know what time it is?”

“...” 

“Three in the goddamn morning, are you fucking serious? Jesus, you’re twenty-one years old and you can’t even take care of yourself. God, you have me and your father worried-” 

“I just killed my neighbor.” 

“-sick! Wait, what?”

"I said I just killed my neighbor.” 

“Who? How? Icarus what the hell!" 

“My neighbor came over for some help and he wanted me to patch him up but he tried to...he tried to bite me.” 

“ Jesus, Icarus what’d you do?” 

“I pushed him off but he lunged at me again. I managed to dodge and make it to the kitchen so I bashed his head in with a frying pan." 

"Are you sure he's dead?" 

There's a beat of silence and some shuffling on Icarus's end and then," His brains are on my floor. It smells really bad. I just mopped." 

“Icarus is this a fucking joke? I swear to God I will fly down there and drag you back home by your-” 

“I’m not joking.” 

“...” 

“Mom?” 

“Did you call the police?” 

“You _are_ the police, Mama.” 

“I’m retired.” 

“Ma.” 

“Alright, alright, shit Icarus, couldn’t you stay out of trouble for once like your sister? She’s doing well at that pharmaceutical...what’s it called Embryo?” 

“Umbrella.” 

“Yeah, that! Why’d you have to drop out, baby?” 

“We can’t have this conversation with a dead body in my-” 

The line suddenly goes dead. Icarus pulls the phone away from her ear to inspect it with a frown. It flashed and beeped signifying the dead battery from when she neglected to charge it. 

"Damn it." Icarus tosses the phone onto the couch with a quiet huff. She did not doubt that her mom was probably losing her shit now and was probably assuming that Icarus was pulling some prank for attention. 

Abruptly a groan, low and guttural, pitches through the atmosphere. 

A putrid smell wafts through the air and viciously assaults her nose forcing her to fight back a gag while she slowly turns around. She wants to throw up at the sight of what’s left of her neighbor-no- _Joel’s_ face.

Eyes milky white and empty of intelligence. Lower jaw hanging on a thin strand of skin, and the upper row of his teeth damn near gone. His skin no longer had its healthy glow like the morning before but resembled wrinkled paper, the upper half of his face caved in and pulpy with rotting flesh. Brain matter spilled and dribbled from the opening she had created not even ten minutes ago. 

Joel’s lifeless eyes find hers and a snarl rips through his throat, a vicious noise that violently tears through her. His shambling footsteps echo louder than shotgun bullets the closer he gets. Rainwater slides down his clothes, mixing with the blood from his wounds, and pools on the wood floor beneath him. Icarus feels that her mind has gone startling blank as Joel’s form sludged forward. A static haze she hadn't felt in a long time.

He didn’t have to be close to see how easy he towered over her. Icarus wasn’t short, she was a little over five-foot-five and hit the gym often enough to gain some muscle in just about every part of her body. But compared to Joel’s height which surpassed six feet and his over two-hundred-pound body which was more muscle than fat-Icarus could be crushed like an ant if she wasn’t careful. Hell, she almost did get crushed during their earlier scuffle. 

Even with that startling revelation, Icarus readies the pan over her shoulder as she would a bat. She shakes herself and prepares for the inevitable. Joel's arms reach out for her and she doesn't blink when she swings with frightening speed. 

_CR-ACK_

Blood spurts across her face and is quickly followed by the resounding noise of Joel’s head snapping back and bending at a painfully awkward angle. _Damn._

His body stumbles back from the deadly blow, large feet staggering until he finally collapses and lands directly on her coffee table. The old thing groans and gives out within seconds causing Icarus to startle back while simultaneously switching the now dented frying pan to her other hand. She waits.

A beat of silence passes. Then two. 

She shuffles forward and cautiously peers over the still form. 

His face cracked open like porcelain. More brain matter dribbled and leaked onto her floor in a goopy mess. For a moment, she's able to visualize what he looked like the day before. Green eyes bright and warm as he excitedly told her about his daughter's success in soccer. Skin a vibrant olive and smile crooked but soft. She didn't know him well, didn't need to, to know that he was a good person. 

And if she was any other person, maybe born in another life, she would've hesitated. 

“Sorry, Joel,” Icarus raises the pan high over her head, lips twitching down into a frown and nose wrinkling. “But I can’t have you getting back up again.” 

The sight of his face split open and mashed in from the final blow should've made her puke. It should've made her gut twist and turn and should've caused her to tremble uncontrollably. She should've mourned over a lost friend. But, Icarus Castellanos was no stranger to locking up such emotions and throwing away the key. She was no stranger to the static that slipped its sneaky tendrils over her mind and pulled her under. 

For now, all she could do was write this off as a start to a _really bad fucking day._

**(If only she knew that things were just getting started).**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty Dialogue heavy for the first two chapters or so bare with me here.


	2. Not Until It's Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Icarus is too calm for someone whose apartment building is burning down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I just wanted to say thank you to the person who bookmarked my story, this chapter is for you and the others who've read my first chapter! I hope you guys like Icarus cause I'm super excited to write her and future characters. But enough about that, onto the c h a p t e r.

* * *

* * *

When Icarus was fourteen, she received the first and last gift from her father. It’s presented to her in a sleek black box. There’s no ribbon to tie it together or a sticker to remind her who it came from; although the last part wasn't needed. 

His black eyes are empty and unfeeling, a look she grew accosted to every time one of her older siblings stepped into the room. Icarus clenches her fist to keep her hands from shaking and keeps her head down. Her nails leave familiar crescent moons into the palms.

_'Don't show him you're scared.'_

“You’re not going to ask about the gift?” Her father’s voice is a deep drawl that makes her skin crawl and the dotted bruises along her body to tingle. “I expected some gratefulness.” 

_‘I don’t care.’_ Icarus feels her nails dig deeper. ‘ _I don’t care. I don’t care.’_

Quietly, she says, “Thank you, sir.” 

“Open it.” He orders sharply, drawing himself to his full height and staring down at her. She feels her body tense involuntarily as if preparing for a fight and obeys. The lid comes off with a quiet ‘pop’. 

She stares inside the box. “Throwing knives.” 

“Kunai.” Her father corrects snidely. “I figured since you can’t shoot a gun like the rest of us, you might learn to not be useless in something. You have to be prepared for when the world ends.” 

There’s a righteous look that takes over his expression. She’s heard the lecture one million times and she was sure she was going to hear it one million more. One day, the world was going to end. One day, she’s going to awaken to complete fuckery but unlike everyone else, the Gray Family would be prepared. At least, that was what her father said. 

Coldly, her father says, “You’ll need these one day.” After a brief pause of contemplation, he adds, “That’s if you’re not dumb enough to get yourself killed first.” 

_‘I won’t. I won’t. I won’t. I-”_

❖ ❖ 

**CRASH**

_'Get up, Icarus.’_

God, she was so tired. 

_‘Get up! GET UP!’_

When she breathes, she inhales a lungful of smoke that chokes her throat and makes tears spring to her eyes. Her eyes fly open and take in the sea of red and orange that climbs up her walls and spreads across her furniture. A shuttering cough racks her body, as she tries to unscramble her thoughts. 

_The phone call. Joel. The explosion._

Icarus looks up and stares at the hole in her ceiling and coughs again. Right, the floor above her just fucking exploded and-

Icarus looks down

-sent something into her left leg. _Shit._

When she pulls herself into a seated position, pain instantly throbs from the wood spike that impaled her thigh. She couldn’t pull it out now, not with the obvious going on. 

“Alright, Icarus,” she mutters to herself. “On three.” 

_‘One. Two.’_

Her cry of pain is smothered by gritted teeth when she abruptly pushes herself up. She shifts her weight onto her uninjured leg and frantically scans the blazing living room. The flames had already jumped onto Joel’s body and had begun eating away at the broken pieces of the coffee table. She would only have a few minutes before it got to her bedroom. 

She pulls her pajama shirt up to cover her mouth and nose and starts to limp in the direction of her room. 

**CRASH.**

Icarus doesn’t need to look back to know that the floor above is caving in and destroying her tiny apartment. When she reaches the bedroom door, she pushes it open and immediately heads to the side of her bed. Wincing, Icarus kneels down and grabs the backpack beneath it. 

She had kept it there for emergencies, but god she didn’t think she would ever need it. ~~She always wished she didn't.~~

Icarus quickly pulls the backpack onto her shoulders and hobbles over to her dresser where a fishbowl sat. Scribbled along the rim in tiny lettering, was the name ‘Henry.’ 

“Alright, buddy,” she says while grabbing the fishbowl. “I’ll explain later but for now we gotta get the hell outta here.”

Icarus tucks the fishbowl beneath one arm and heads over to the window. Fire escape. Icarus drops her shirt to put her hand beneath the lower window sash and pushes upwards. 

It doesn’t budge. 

Resisting the urge to groan, Icarus instead shifts to her side and slams her elbow through the glass. It hurts like a bitch but doesn’t stop her from punching out the rest of it and placing the fishbowl onto the fire escape. 

She goes next, grimacing at the feel of cold wet metal against her bare feet. After picking up the fishbowl again, Icarus limps over to the edge of the fire escape ledge and feels her stomach drop at the sight of the city. 

Amidst the dark sky and the pour of rain, she could still see the havoc being wrecked. Homes nearby were being hurriedly evacuated and the streets were already piling up with crashed cars. Just barely, Icarus could pick up the wailing of an ambulance and screeching wheels.

Raccoon City had gone to complete shit. Just fucking great.

**_“Attention all citizens: Due to the citywide outbreak, you are advised to take shelter at the Raccoon City Police Station. Free food and medical supplies will be provided to everyone in need.”_ **

“Police Station, huh?” Icarus says to herself. Well, at least she had a destination in mind.

❖ ❖ 

After carefully placing Henry's little fishbowl in her backpack, Icarus spent the next twenty-three minutes aimlessly wandering. It's mostly spent avoiding the freshly arisen creatures of the night and ducking into alleyways as frantic footsteps flew past. It's due to luck that she doesn't have any other encounters. Her feet get sore and her leg throbs, but Icarus doesn't allow herself a moment of rest until she reaches the front of the police station. 

Eerily enough, there's not a soul in sight and the gate creaks loudly when she pushes it open. Her eyes scan the entrance for any signs of previous activity but are met with nothing. She didn't know what to expect but shouldn't there be at least a few police or medical aids loitering around? 

Perhaps they were inside. Yeah, that seemed more plausible.

With that thought in mind, Icarus head closer to the door and tries the knob. It flies up with another push. 

In her three years of staying in Raccoon City, Icarus had been to the police station a total of two times. The first time was to visit her eldest brother, Chiron, for his farewell party. Let's just say that didn't end well since they never been on good terms ever since-you know what, it's not that important. The second time she visited the police station...wasn't exactly visitation so let's just leave it at that. 

On both occasions, she doesn't remember the police station ever being so bright or warm. It's a contrast to the pouring rain that drowned out the wails of anguish and the fucking groans. Her bare feet squelch against the tile as she scans the room for any hints of life. Carefully, Icarus lowers her backpack to the floor and tilts her head up. The main hall was ridiculously huge with two floors that lead to various parts of the station. 

The most she explored was the West Office and a little bit of the first floor since she got lost while looking for the bathroom. She contemplates calling out for a second but ultimately decides against it. For all she knows, the station could've been overrun already and she just didn't know it yet. And she wasn't in no shape to take on any attacks with her leg. Speaking of...

Icarus looks down. "Gotta get this out." 

She lowers herself onto the ground and unzips her backpack. First, Henry comes out and after some rifling, fresh bandages, a bottle of peroxide, and a small first aid kit comes out next. With great tenderness, Icarus carefully examines her leg. The wood stake puncturing her leg wasn't that big, and from the looks out of it wasn't in too deep. She was lucky it didn't go completely through. 

"Okay," Icarus sucks in a shallow breath and wraps her hands around the stake. "First, we have to extract the object from the wound. Carefully. On the count of three, we're going to pull. Deep breath Icarus. C'mon, Dad has done worse. Way worse." Her ramblings do nothing to soothe her trembling hands, but she continues. "It isn't even in that deep. Just- _fuck."_ Her vision whites out after she abruptly yanks and she clamps her teeth onto her lower lip hard enough to break skin. She feels her eyes water and-

 **'You don't get to cry. '** A tiny voice says, dark and deep and familiar. It makes her tremble harder. **'Not until it's over.'**

Icarus shakes herself. No tears dared to fall. "Next, we're going to gently clean the wound." She unscrews the bottle of peroxide and pours it on the wound with a clamped curse. She makes work of ripping off the bottom half of her pajama pants tosses them away. "Now, we just gotta bandage it. Shit, I shouldn't of fucking dropped out, Mom was totally right." 

She takes the bandage and starts to wrap her leg. There's a slowness to her movements, an occurrence that only worsens once she catches the sight of her own blood. Her vision starts to fill with black dots. 

"C'mon Icarus, you can't pass out again." Her murmuring sounds foreign to her ears as she tries to quicken her movements. "Almost..." 

_'Done.'_

The darkness claims her quicker than she would've liked.

⤋

⤋

⤋

**_Whiz. Thud._ **

_The kunai embeds itself_ _a few inches away from the center. Damn it._

_"It's all in the wrist, Icarus." Her older brother tells her with an exasperated sigh and Icarus frowns. He was the only brother she held the most resemblance to with similar dark brown eyes and unruly curly hair._

_Flatly, she points out, "Troy, my knife-throwing skills are better than yours."_

_Troy scowls. "I can still kick your ass, thirteen or not."_

_"And how would Mom react to her youngest daughter getting beat up by a seventeen-year-old?" Icarus tosses Troy a small smirk over her shoulder._

_His brown eyes narrow. "You wouldn't."_

_Icarus turns to face him fully, eyes suddenly blown wide and watery. Tears spill down her cheeks and she wipes them with a sniffle. "Mom, Troy tried to-" she hiccups, "-hit me."_

_"You little shit!"_

_If she were any other person, the stormy look in his eyes would've scared her._

_The waterworks stop in an instant and she shoots him a grin quite similar to his. "Thanks!"_

**_Whiz. Thud._ **

_Bullseye._

_"All in the wrist." Icarus's giggle is abruptly cut off as she's scooped up and thrown over his shoulder. "Troy you asshole put me down!"_

_"Not until you admit that Troy is the best brother in the entire world AND he's better than Chiron!"_

_"I'll stab you." Icarus threatens and presses her spare kunai into his lower back._

_"You won't. No balls."_

_"I swear to God I'll cut off these shitty dreadlocks you've been trying to grow-"_

_"And what exactly is going on here?" At the sound of their father's voice, the laughter halts. Icarus's boots find the floor the minute, Troy sets her down. She straightens her back and tilts her head up, folding her arms behind her back.  
_

_Troy answers for both of them. "Nothing, sir."_

_Their father arches a thick brow and takes a step down from the stairs. He was a big man and built well but he didn't dwarf Troy in height like how he dwarfed Icarus. Despite the mask of indifference on Troy's face, his hands still trembled very much like hers. They didn't perfect their masks like Hyperion or Ares who didn't even flinch whenever their father got too close. Chiron fought back and Apollo just didn't seem to give a fuck. Tyr...was Tyr._

_Icarus herself was getting close to hiding any signs of fear. For some reason, her father was the harshest on her and she always got the harshest of punishments. She could hide any other emotion and she could fake hurt pretty damn good. But for some reason, she could never fully mask her fear. Well, not from her father at least._

_"Are you lying?"_

_Troy's voice doesn't waver. "No, sir."_

_Icarus clenches the weapon in her hand and stares straight ahead as their father steps closer._

**_'Don't do it, Icarus. Don't do it.'_ **

_"So if I pull up the cameras they won't reveal anything? Such as neglecting your training in favor of fucking around?!"_

_"..."_

_The man huffs. "Very well, Icarus, I'm assuming you'll tell the truth, yes?"_

_Quietly, she drones, "No, sir."_

_"Excuse me?"_

_Her body tenses and her eyes narrow._

_"You won't pull up anything, sir," Icarus informs tonelessly, her jaw clenched. "The camera broke after our last training incident, remember? You must've forgotten."_

_For the first time in her life, her father appears at loss for words._

_**'Don't do it, Icarus.'** _

_"Maybe if Mom wasn't divorcing you, you'd have something else to focus on instead of trying to figure out where you fucked up." She says blankly, and after an afterthought, she politely adds, "Sir."_

**_'Damn it.'_ **

_Next to her, Troy barely conceals the snort he gives._

_**'Get ready, you fucking dumbass.'** She thinks to herself and prepares for the inevitable. _

_As expected, her smart choice of words sends her father making a beeline heading straight towards her, fist clenched at his sides. Icarus takes a step back and brings her hands up in a stance to defend. The kunai feels slippery in her sweaty hands but her grip never loosens. It wouldn't be their first fight nor their last. But it just might be the first she'll ever win. Maybe._

_Her vision is blocked by Troy's back. His hands are still trembling. "Stay back."_

_"Move or you'll get it worse than your sister."_

_Troy doesn't dignify their father with a response. He tilts his head over to her with a soft smile and says, **"** **Wake up.'**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leon's appearance next chapter! I also plan on showing Icarus's past through a few flashbacks and some depressing dialogue (:


	3. Lose My Mind Down Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Icarus and Leon meet as normally as possible while there are zombies roaming around except it's not much of a meeting because Icarus is weird as hell and Leon is just...not having a good time. Or day. Or life. (:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was n o t supposed to get attached to Icarus or give her a sad backstory but I lack self-control and did both.

* * *

When Leon was thirteen, he encounters a girl with empty eyes and bruises on her skin. They meet on a playground just before the sun sets behind the hills of the city. He notices her first because of the way her head hangs as she sat on the swing set. Her feet dangle as she idly pushes herself back and forth and when he approaches her, she doesn’t lookup. 

Cautiously, he asks, “Hey, are you okay?” 

The girl pulls her head up, and he almost gasps. The black eye isn't what scares him, no matter how nasty looking it was: swollen and luminous, blooming an ugly shade of black and purple and blue. It isn't the split lip either. What scares him is the look in her eyes or lack of look thereof. 

He's seen the look before; once on his mother after a particularly nasty fight with his father, that ended with him storming off into the night. He saw it again after his father got fired from a job, and the bills piled a little too high. Another time was on his Biology teacher after she announced that her mother had died and she was going to be gone for a few days for the funeral. He's seen the look time and time again but never on someone his age. Never on another child. 

“Who the hell are you?” Her voice is low and flat and possibly the most monotone thing he’s ever heard. More flatter than his teacher in English class and that was saying something. 

“I’m Leon Kennedy.” He says and settles for smiles politely and sticking his hand out. She stares at it for a long moment and then drags her eyes up to meet his own with a raised brow. His hand falls to his side. 

“Hmm.” The girl hums and goes back swinging idly. Leon takes the open swing next to her and says: 

“You never answered my question.” 

“What question?” 

“Are you okay?” He repeats albeit a little slower. “You look…” He struggles to find the right words. No, that's a lie. A flood of words come to mind to describe her, each one no better than the last. He briefly recalls his mother telling him to be careful with his words, especially when it came to girls, and he wants to be careful. 

The girl fills the silence instead. “Like I got my ass beat by an asshole of a father who doesn’t know how to parent his goddamn kids because his childhood was so fucked up that he didn’t break the goddamn cycle of abuse?” She offers flatly, and Leon physically pulls his head back his mind reeling at the suggestion. 

Eyebrows meeting over the bridge of his brow, he quietly says, “I was gonna say sad.” 

“I guess that works too.” She agrees and when she smiles, it’s humorless. “Forgot that was a thing.” 

Her words once again send him into a bundle of confusion. “Feeling sad?” He asks with a tilt of his head.

“Where I’m from, you don’t get to feel anything until it’s over.” 

“Until what’s over?” 

Her shoulders lift and fall. “I ask myself the same thing.” 

They sit in silence with nothing but the creak of the swings and the faint whisper of the wind. The sun fades out of sight, painting the sky with faint streaks of orange and yellow. 

His mother calls his name from across the park. He pushes himself up. “My mom is calling me.” 

“I heard.” 

Leon’s blue eyes lock with hers. “Do you wanna come meet her?” 

_She can help_ , he wants to say but it seems as if his message is heard loud and clear if the surprised look she gives him says anything. 

“I appreciate the offer.” 

He shakes his head. “Don’t, it’s the right thing to do.” 

The smile she gives him is small but genuine but her eyes are still somber. The last of her spirit was clinging desperately to that thin strand, fingers dangling. Slipping. “You’re weird, Leon Kennedy.” 

Leon looks away when his mother calls his name once more. 

When he turns back, the girl is gone. 

❖ ❖

He doesn’t have many regrets in life. His list is rather small, starting with never forcing a girl he met to get help even when she declined it. It’s something that still eats him up inside to this very day. 

Coming to Raccoon City quickly earned a place on his shortlist. It was the murders that had attracted him, which garnered a few raised brows when he told his fellow colleagues during his time in The Academy. 

Sure, everyone was excited to be out in the field after graduation. But wanting to tackle murders head-on without much experience? Yeah, there were very few willing to do that. God, Leon wished he was apart of those few.

But, it’s just that, Leon wanted to _help_ people. According to his parents, it’s a trait he’s been holding onto ever since he was a kid. Helping others finding toys in Kindergarten, defending others from bullies, and all that good golden boy stuff. It was no real surprise when he announced to them that he wanted to be a cop before he even hit high school. His parents were supportive, a bit wary, but happily sent him on his way after he promised to keep in touch. 

(Which he sorta failed to do and now also regretted when he realized he’d probably never see them again. But, hey, that’s just life). 

Funny how just a day ago he was dreaming up of all the cases he was gonna solve. Maybe he’d make a name for himself in Raccoon City. A fresh place and a fresh start. He’d be a rookie, the bottom of the totem toll, but Leon was no stranger to hard work. 

And he couldn’t help but be excited, even when he was told by his superior to come a little later than usual. Because things would be good. No-scratch that-things would be fan-fucking-tastic. At least, that’s what he told himself. 

Until he stopped at the gas station and got to witness some man get his face chewed off and shit just went downhill from there. It was like he was on a rollercoaster except everything was on fire and he didn’t have safety restraints to stop him from flying out and _fucking dying._

First, he’s forced to kill people- _innocents-_ who aren’t even people anymore. He meets Claire Redfield and can’t even kindle a friendship before his car blows up and then he’s forced to run away from more of those _things_ so they won’t take a chunk out of his ass or something.

Did he mention that today was supposed to be his first day on the job? Pretty shitty, right? 

And just when things can’t get any worse, when he reaches the Police Station, the closest thing to a safe haven, he encounters a dead body. Well, at least he thinks she’s dead. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal if there was something about her that rings familiar. 

Unlike the creatures outside, the woman’s skin is a slightly healthy shade of dark brown and lacked any signs of rot and decay. Her wavy silver hair was pulled up into a bun that fell astray and damp from the rain. There's a tattoo on her neck, something he barely processes when he takes a few steps forward and notices the haphazardly bandaged wound on her leg, and the spilled bottle of peroxide to her side. He stares at her for another moment, checking for any hints of movement or breathing or _something_.

When he’s rewarded with nothing, he exhales a harsh breath and breezes past her. Can't dawdle on it now. 

He makes a beeline straight towards the computer. It pulls up a security camera. The hallway buzzes with silence and then-

_"David! Marvin! You there? I found a way out, it's in here!"_

The officer holds up a notebook towards the camera. Another zombie stumbles forward. Gunshots. Groaning. 

_"Send reinforcements! East Hallway!"_

“I gotta find that guy.” Leon pulls away and draws his gun. Maybe, just this once, he’d be able to save someone. 

❖ ❖

He’s unsuccessful. 

_“HELP ME! PLEASE HELP ME!”_

_“Give me your hand. I got you-”_

Leon thinks back to the gore that was displayed before him; the glazed look of fear on the dead officer’s face and the spillage of intestines smeared across the floor and forces down the bile that builds up in his throat. 

He failed. _Again_. 

“I’m sure you did what you could, Leon.” Marvin’s voice sounds like it’s coming from the end of a tunnel. Leon shuts his eyes for a moment and tries to regain control over his breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He opens his eyes. 

“I…” Leon trails off as his gaze lands in the spot where the woman had once been. Keyword _once._ As in, the woman was fucking gone from existence and there were barely any signs of her ever being there. “What the hell?” 

“What?” 

His eyes linger on the spot. God, maybe she had turned into one of those things. It wouldn't be long before he encountered her roaming about. “I thought I saw...there was…” 

Marvin gives him a worried look and he shakes his head. 

“Never mind, it’s just been a long night.” 

The man gives him a sardonic smile. “Yeah, you’re telling me.” 

It isn’t until he’s dressed in his police uniform and checking the remainder bullets in his gun does Marvin tell him that there’s a possible secret passage to escape the Police Station. Elliot, the dead officer from before, discovered it. 

Marvin passes him a combat knife and sends him off with a new objective to find a way to get underground. 

Find the medallions.

_Don’t make my mistake. If you see one of those things-uniform or not-you do not hesitate. You take it out...or you run._

Don't make that mistake. Survive. 

“Don’t hesitate,” he murmurs to himself when finding himself faced with yet another zombie staring dazedly into the vending machine. It hasn’t noticed him yet, so Leon uses that opportunity to aim at the thing’s head and fire. 

It groans. Turns to face him. Steps uneasy and sluggish. 

Leon fires again and again. Mentally keeping track of the leftover ammo he has left. Four shots. It takes four shots _(God why didn't it just die?)_ The zombie collapses with a thud and he walks over to the fallen officer. Cautiously, he raises Matilda once more and sends another round into the thing’s head. It explodes with a wet squelch. 

He repeats the action with the other zombie laying still in front of the West Office for precaution. He knew things had a habit of rising again. 

_Don’t hesitate._

Time is a concept he quickly loses after passing through the Reception Room. It’s like entering another dimension filled with darkness and seemingly endless dead bodies and gore. Puddles of blood. The stench of rot and mildew and something fainter that was growing more familiar as he trekked on.

Leon spends a good deal of his time searching the rooms he has access too, picking up ammo and grinding herbs into a fine powder. During his search, he finds a map of the 1st floor and a series of documents detailing the events from a few days ago, sitting underneath the banner that read :

**_W E L C O M E L E O N !_ **

Ha. Ha. Life was very fucking funny. 

_There was another clash on the west side of the station around 1 pm. Twelve died, and there is only a handful of survivors left. Everything is falling in disarray in here._

He should’ve come earlier; orders be damned. 

It takes a moment to stop his hands from shaking, but when he does, he’s back on the move. He investigates the Safety Deposit Room for a bit, reading the memo left behind, and opting to come back later when he had some more room left over. Inventory was a scarce thing, but if he could just find those other keys he'd be able to get that pouch.

The silence feels damn there suffocating when he steps back into the hallway and pulls out his map. If he was reading correctly, there was a-

“Darkroom,” he whispers to himself in surprise. “Didn’t think the station would have that.”

“Neither did I.” A voice responds from directly behind him and he whirls around with a yelp, Matilda aimed at the forehead of the perpetrator. He takes in the silver hair and checks for any potential signs of bites on her brown skin. His meager flashlights only revealed bloodied pajamas and a...fishbowl? 

“Y-you!” Is the only response his mind could think of and he flushes at the raised brow it earns him. 

Dryly, she echoes, “Me.” 

“You’re that woman from earlier!” He feels vulnerable standing in the hallway, his back to the uninvestigated hall but can’t remove his gaze from the slightly amused look in the woman’s dark brown eyes. “I thought you- oh I’m fucking hallucinating.” 

He _had_ to be. He should've at least heard her sneak up on him, no one was that fucking quiet and even his footsteps echoed whenever he walked. 

“You’re not.” The woman shakes her head. “I was there earlier.”

“But you disappeared-” 

Sighing, she says, “I had to pee. Went looking for a bathroom after I gained consciousness." 

He gives her a suspicious look. “How’d you find me?” 

“Came back to Lieutenant and he directed me to your general direction. Said you couldn’t be too far off and that you might need help.” 

Leon resists the urge to drag his hand down his face and instead says, “We can talk more in the Darkroom, it’s not too far ahead.” 

“Lead the way, Officer.” She drawls lowly, and when he turns around, he’s secretly glad that the darkness hides the flush crawling up his neck. Today has been a long day. A really long, weird fucking day. 

. . . .

The Darkroom is relatively medium-sized with a few unopened lockers and another storage chest in the corner. The other half of the room is cut off into a smaller section where the film development took place. He flips the switch on, casting the room in dim lighting. 

“I guess now would be the time for a proper introduction.” Leon offers a nervous smile to the woman seated on top of the table. He tucks away his gun and sticks out a hand. “I’m Leon Kennedy.” 

When she makes no effort to take his hand, he drops it with an awkward cough. 

After a beat of silence, she finally says, “Icarus...Castellanos.” She lifts the fishbowl and presents it proudly. “This is Henry.” 

“A fish?” 

“My emotional support fish,” The woman corrects breezily, brown eyes flickering up to meet his own. “I managed to save him before the rest of my apartment caught fire." 

“Your apartment caught on fire?” 

“After I killed my neighbor.” 

“You killed your neighbor?!” Leon’s voice pitches an octave he didn’t know he was capable of reaching. What the hell? He doesn’t know what to feel worse about. The fact that Icarus just admitted to killing her neighbor. Or the lack of remorse on her face as she said so.

Icarus gives him a blank stare. Well, her face was already blank, but it gets blanker if that made any kind of fucking sense. “Relax, Kennedy, he was one of those...things.” 

_Oh_. “Oh.” 

“Back to the fire, I only managed to grab a few things before going through the fire escape.” 

Confusion skitters across his face before he could stop it. “You managed to grab your fish but not...shoes?” 

His eyes flicker down to her bare feet.

“Emotional Support Fish.” Icarus corrects while hugging the bowl closer to her chest. How the hell did she manage to carry that thing _and_ kill zombies at the same time? Actually, he didn’t even want to think about that. “And it wasn't like I was thinking-" Icarus's eyes suddenly go wide with panic"-'oh shit let me grab my shoes really quick while my fucking apartment is burning down! Maybe I'll save my toothbrush too!" The look is gone just as quick as it appeared; a smooth mask of calm in its place. "Besides, I had a bag prepared for emergencies." 

Icarus places the fishbowl down next to her and slings the backpack off her shoulders to place in her lap. She unzips it and rifles through it for a bit. “It’s a bit outdated though once you consider the fact that I packed this shit a few years ago.” 

She pulls out a black box and props it open. 

“Throwing knives?” 

“Kunai.” Icarus corrects in a dull monotone. “Might as well arm myself properly if I’m going with you.” 

“Uh, I don’t know if you’re,” he fades off as he once again tries to find the right words for that. He makes a weak gesture towards her unbothered posture and shredded clothing. “Equipped for that?” 

Dryly, she asks, “What, something wrong my pajamas? I thought I was making a good fashion statement.” 

Scratching the back of his head, Leon averts his gaze, “I think you could make a better statement in something else.” 

Icarus sounds unimpressed.“Uh-huh.” 

“I’ll make you a deal.” Leon settles for saying. “I’ll find you some better clothing and some shoes and then we can figure out what the hell is going on. Together.” 

“Alright, Kennedy,” her head dips into a nod, eyes absent of any warmth yet strangely inviting. “You got yourself a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some exploring and getting to know each other next chapter!


	4. The Value of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Icarus kinda overshares but at least they get some exploring done!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There has been A LOT going on lately, so I'm sorry for being late! On the bright side, I beat Leon's campaign on Resident Evil 6. Also, I added like a few extra rooms to explore so expect those to be coming up throughout the story.

Icarus learns to value bigger things at a very young age.

 _“Your life is more important than a toy._ ” Is what her Father used to say. He made sure to point out the kids in the store who held onto their parent’s hand with one hand and a stuffed animal with another and tell her how they wouldn’t make it in the real world. It didn’t make sense to Icarus. Those kids weren't even grown up yet. How would he know?

But Icarus didn’t voice her concerns, she learned to stop questioning her father’s logic when he deemed it as disrespectful back talk. 

Disrespectful back talk = Well Deserved Ass-Whooping. And Icarus was not fond of those. 

So, she stops valuing clothes, and cartoons and soon playing outside. It was training and training only. Those other things weren’t going to save her when the world was going to end. Learning the difference between different guns and bullets was more important. Reading people for lying, learning to trust her instincts, and surviving in the wilderness was more important. No matter what. 

Icarus thinks that way for a very long time. She stops questioning it until she hits middle school. Her body is changing, she’s growing, and suddenly she kinda cares about what everyone thinks and it's weird since she’s never cared before…Until Wendy happens.

Wendy is a pretty blonde with dark green eyes and a freckled face that only got more freckled when she stood underneath the sun for too long. Her parents were pretty well off, which explained why she always had the newest backpack on the market, and the newest skirts and shoes. Her hair was always pulled into a braid and finished off with a bright pink bow that anyone could spot across the room. She was sweet to most people, a bitch to others, but Icarus didn’t have a problem with her. They never talk anyway, except for that one time Icarus borrowed a pencil from her and never really returned it. Wendy is what you would call  
‘Popular’.

So, thirteen-year-old Icarus is a bit surprised when said girl approaches her right before the bell rang, and gives her a bubbly smile that revealed a row pearly whites.

“Hey, Icarus, I was wondering if you’d like to come to my slumber party this weekend!”

“Your what?”

The smile on Wendy’s face dims a little. “My slumber party. You’ve been to one of those right?”

When Icarus shakes her head in confusion, Wendy’s smile drops completely. “Like not even one?”

“No.”

And at Icarus’s words, Wendy’s lips curve into something soft. “Well, I’ll give you an invitation tomorrow and we’ll see how it goes from there, yeah? I just need to know by Friday.”

Icarus nods slow and hesitant. “Sure, Wendy, I’ll ask my,” she pauses, “Mom.”

“Cool, see ya!”

The thought of a slumber party swarmed her mind until the bell rang. The invitation sits in her backpack for two days. When she asks her Mom, the woman gets so excited and agrees wholeheartedly, just as long as she met Wendy’s mother.

(Looking back on it, a small part of Icarus just wished her Mom had said no).

The slumber party is amazing. Icarus tries all types of sweets and junk food that she usually isn’t allowed to have. They do each other’s hair and nails (or in Icarus’s case just her nails since she had in box braids) and talk about everything. She feels a little left out sometimes when the talk drifts to clothes and boys and makeup, but no one notices to point it out.

The girls are sweet. They don’t talk about the bruises on her skin or the callouses of her hands. They don’t mention her initial jumpiness and flitting eyes and just pull her into the house with polite smiles and warm hugs.

Icarus starts to feel weird a little just as everyone has started to nod off one by one. Icarus can’t bring herself to give in to the heavy pull of her eyelids; not until she’s identified this feeling at least.

They’re all sprawled out across the floor on a pallet and Icarus has taken to the corner, her back to the wall, and a clear view of the front door. Next to her, Wendy is rolled over to the slide. Her breathing hasn’t changed yet.

Quietly, Icarus says, “Hey, Wendy?”

“Hmm?”

“I feel weird.”

Wendy rolls over so that they’re facing each other, green eyes hooded and thick with sleep. “Do you want me to get my Mom? She can call yours if you want?”

Icarus wrinkles her nose. “Not sick weird, it’s...nevermind.”

“No, no c’mon just tell me. We’re friends now.”

“Friends?”

The idea of friends is a foreign concept to Icarus, and she didn't care about it until now. 

Wendy nods. “Mhmm, now tell me about this weird feeling or whatever. Is it bad?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Hmm, do you have butterflies or something? Mom told me this thing about anxiety and how funny it makes people feel.”

“No, I just feel really warm, but it’s like a good warm? I dunno, I just had a really good time, and you guys were nice.”

“Icarus….” Wendy trails off. “I think you’re just happy.”

“Happy?”

“It’s when you have such a good time it leaves you feeling good.”

Happy? Something so simple, but also uncommon from where she came from. Icarus liked this feeling. It was nice.

“Oh,” Icarus says dumbly, and in the darkness Wendy giggles and tells her to go to sleep. In the warmth of her presence, Icarus fades into a sleep that isn’t fitful or light. She stays happy, all the way through the next morning, and during the car ride home. It’s a feeling she clings too, desperate and greedy until her father snuffs it out.

She’s missed training and now has to make up for it. She and Wendy aren’t allowed to be friends. _She’s a distraction_ her father says and then they train for hours with no breaks until she drops. Literally. Her siblings watch on in silence. 

Icarus goes to school with a black eye and a broken finger. It's not the first time. Her sixth black eye (of the year). 

Friends are something she’s forced to lose interest in. Happiness next.

Because surviving is more important than happiness, no matter the cost or the sacrifice.

❖❖❖

“How do you feel about Kennedy?”

Icarus is used to the silence she receives while she watched Henry idly swim around his bowl blue scales shimmering in the dim light. Leon had left about ten minutes ago with a promise to return with some clothes and shoes so that they can be on their way.

  
For now, she could gather her thoughts and figure out her next step. She didn’t plan on sticking with Kennedy for long, not when she needed to find her sister and get the hell out of a dodge. Even if her sister was a bitch.

“He’s naive,” the woman pulls out the items in her backpack and places them next to her. A lighter, some leftover bandages and peroxide, a pocket-multi-tool, a water bottle, and more than a few granola bars she hoped didn’t expire. “Trusted me too easily, I could be a killer or something.”

Henry makes another lazy lap around the bowl. Icarus examines the kunai set and runs a finger over one of the blades. Dust comes up.

“He won’t last long in a world like this,” she murmurs to herself. “Good thing I’m not as fucked up as Eli said I was, yeah?”

Her lips downturn into a frown, fingers wrapping around the hilt of the kunai. The feel of the weapon in her hand is familiar and light. Deadly. She wipes one side of the blade against the fabric of her pajama pants and then the other-effectively clearing off any dust.

She sticks her index finger through the loop and twirls the kunai around it. She watches the sleek blade spin around once, twice. Her eyes narrow. Inhales sharp.

The door swings up just as she sends the blade whirring forward. The sound it makes with the wall is resounding. Familiar.

Leon blinks, mouth dropping into a small ‘O’. “Holy shit.”

He steps further into the room with a bundle of clothes in his hands. Blue eyes land on the kunai buried into the wall.

“Woah, where’d you learn to do that?”

Icarus feels her shoulders lift and fall. “I had to teach myself as a kid.”

“Amazing,” he breathes and there isn’t a hint of mockery in his tone when he smiles out her. He pushes the bundles of clothes into her arms.

Icarus takes the police women’s uniform and inspects them. “Did you steal these off a dead body?”

“Women’s Locker Room.”

She unfurls the clothes and tilts her head. “Looks about my size.”

“Oh, I got you these too.” Leon pulls out a pair of shoes from seemingly nowhere and places them on the floor next to her feet. He pulls out a pair of black socks next. 

“Did you just raid someone’s locker?”

Leon nods. “Yes,” he replies unashamedly and gives her a tiny grin. “Someone carved the code into the wall so we got lucky.”

“Alright, I’ll change and then we can get the hell out of here.” Icarus kicks herself off the item chest. Leon doesn’t hesitate to turn around and face the other wall.

She’s halfway into pulling off her shirt when he finally asks her, “So what brings you to Raccoon City?”

Icarus hesitates for a few beats before carefully saying, “I moved out here a few years ago with my older brother and sister.”

“Oh, yeah? How many siblings do you have?”

Icarus carefully slips off her wet pants with a grimace. “Youngest out of eight.” She inspects her leg and bends it. It throbs slightly, but she finds that the pain was something she could manage. “What about you? Any other Kennedys running around at home?”

That brings a small chuckle out of the man. “No ma’am, just an only child.”

“Must be fucking nice.” Icarus huffs slightly and sticks an arm through the uniform of the police shirt. “My sister is a bitch.”

“Damn.”

“She slept with my boyfriend.” Icarus sticks her other arm through the shirt.

“Oh.”

“And then married him,” the woman finishes dryly, eyes rolling as she began to button up her shirt.

“Wow. That-uh really fucking sucks.” Leon runs his fingers through his hair and Icarus pauses to eye his movement. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Eh, to be fair I was distant.” Icarus pulls on the pants next with a grunt. “That’s enough of my shitty love life, ask another question.”

“Er, what did you use to work as before all of this,” Leon makes a flippant gesture with his hand. “Happened?”

“I worked night shifts as a coffee shop barista and day shifts at the skating rink.”

“Really?”

“Mhmm, fucking hate coffee, and the customers were a bunch of stuck up pricks. I would not recommend it but watching little kids bust their ass on ice is pretty funny though.” Icarus tucks the shirt into her pants and gets to working on strapping on her arm and knee pads. “It distracted me from the crippling student debt I had to pay off."

“College?”

“Yeah, I went to that fancy one being funded by Umbrella.”

“Isn’t it super hard to get into?”

She nods. “Yup, so my Mama was pretty pissed when I dropped out.”

Pissed would be an understatement. Her mother yelled at her for over an hour without letting her get a word in and then refused to talk to her for four months. It was only due to her stepdad that they started talking again.

_“You aren’t going to be anything at this rate! I just want the best for you Icarus, why can’t you go out and do something with your life? Nothing is stopping you, you have no excuse!”_

“I heard college isn’t what it’s all cut out to be.” Leon’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts before she could sink any deeper. “So I don’t blame you.”

There’s a genuineness to his voice that she’s never heard but she tries not to fall for it. She had done it before. She fell, easy and hard, and the only thing it got her was a broken fucking heart. She promised herself that would be the last time. Icarus wouldn’t start trusting Leon now, she’s barely even known the man for thirty fucking minutes.

Icarus clears her throat. “Alright, I’m done.”

Leon turns to face her, a small smile in place that she doesn’t return. She settles on making a dismissive gesture.

“What’s the plan?”

  
The plan isn’t much of a plan but mainly focuses on exploring the other floors and finding shit that Icarus can’t be bothered with remembering. They have to unlock doors and find medallions and Icarus just knows that they’re going to be in for a long night. A really long fucking night.

“I still haven’t gotten to the second and third floor yet so let’s see what we can find there and double back to Marvin.”

“No objections here.” Icarus pulls her backpack over her shoulders after restuffing the items in and adjusts the straps so that they’re tighter. She follows her actions by attaching her kunai knives to her belt and walking over to pull the one of the wall. “Let’s find these fucking medallions.”

The lack of enthusiasm in her voice causes Leon to smile brightly despite the shitty situation they were both in.

❖❖

“Are you going to be okay without a flashlight?”

“...”

“Icarus?”

Leon pauses in walking and turns to face the woman his flashlight aimed at her waist so he wouldn’t blind her. Her head is cocked to the side, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Her finger points upward. “Above us.”

Leon directs his light upwards as if to reveal something, but only sees the ceiling. Mouth closing shut, he strains his ears and waits. He could faintly hear the zombie banging on the boarded-up window from downstairs, the soft pitter-patter of rain. He could hear his heartbeat; fast and irregular. Palpitating and thundering louder than his very footsteps.

“I’ll go first.” Icarus brushes past him, effectively snapping his concentration. She already has her weapon in hand, footsteps still eerily silent.

“Icarus, wait-”

By the time his feet touch the second floor, Icarus has already dealt with the zombie stumbling down the stairs from the third floor. He watches her slide the kunai out of its forehead and grimaces. He wondered if she was just as affected by the creatures as he was.

“Can’t believe you heard that from the first floor,” Leon comments in slight surprise. “You have some pretty good hearing.”

“Or maybe your hearing is shitty,” Icarus suggests dryly as she wiped the bloodied kunai against the dead body’s pants.

“I passed all my hearing test believe it or not.”

“Mhmm, let’s just scan this floor.”

There’s some ammo near the heel of a fallen officer. He leans down to grab it, eyes warily watching the slumped form before he takes a step back.

Icarus’s low drawl of a voice reaches his ears, “You might wanna put a bullet in its brain just in case.”

He steps back, draws Matilda to aim and fires.

The zombie groans and rises unsteadily to its feet. For a moment, Leon freezes as he wonders what the woman used to be like-who she used to be before she turned into this mindless thing with only an intent to kill. He wonders if she had kids or a family. He wonders if there was still a part of her left in there. Deep down and-

_Thud._

The zombie collapses to the ground, a kunai embedded right between its eyes. Leon blinks slowly, realizing that the thing was barely a few feet away and it could’ve...he would’ve been next. Fuck.

“I’ll have you know that I’m not saving your ass the next time you space out. Or ever. I will leave you as bait.” Icarus appears into view without shooting him so much as a glance. “Get your shit together Kennedy, we’re supposed to be solving this mystery together or some shit. This is your idea, not mine.”

He shakes his head as if it were going to bring him any closer to this fucked up reality he was now in. This Twilight Zone. “Right, I’m sorry, won’t happen again.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m your superior, that’s fucking weird.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Icarus huffs. “Just take the lead and don’t space out again.”

"Yeah, sorry again." 

"Stop apologizing." 

"So-" Leon halts himself at the deadly glare Icarus shoots him and smiles sheepishly. "Let's check out the Shower Room." 

He keeps his flashlight aimed a little above his waist as he takes the lead. The door opens with a simple push and after a beat of silence, he steps in. The first thing that catches his eye is an object a little to his right sitting next to some unused towel. Grabbing it reveals that it was a portable safe. 

"What the hell is that?" 

Leon looks up and catches Icarus's scarily intense gaze. It makes his stomach churn and _not_ in a pleasant way. Definitely not. "It's an uh portable safe." He clears his throat. "I think I might be able to get it open." 

"I'll check the other lockers then." 

Leon tucks his gun away just as a piece of paper taped to the wall catches his eye. 

_**Portable Safe Instructions** _

Well, that's convenient. 

_Press a button to light up its corresponding lamp. Light them all up to open the safe. The buttons must be pressed in a certain order. Pressing a single button out of order will cause-_

"Shit!"

Leon jumps violently, safe tumbling out of his grasp as he aims his gun in Icarus's general direction. 

"Who the fuck sticks a dead body in a locker?!" 

His shoulders relax. "Are you okay?" 

Icarus makes a twisted face, her eyebrows knitting together just over the bridge of her nose and lips curling down before her face relaxes. "Nothing another therapy session won't fix. I hope. I wonder if my therapist is still alive." 

At the abrupt change of subject, Leon leans down to pick up his fallen item and begins testing it. "You went to therapy?" 

Another locker flies open. "Uh-huh, Ma made me go after realizing that I was the only kid who couldn't develop a proper coping mechanism or express my emotions properly. I also tended to overshare and scare people away." 

"Did the therapy help at least?" Leon can't help but ask, even if his brain found it a little difficult to evenly split his attention between the safe and current topic at hand. He's currently leaning more towards the portable safe. 

"The trauma is still there so I dunno, I got a rad fish though." 

He laughs lightly. "Henry is pretty cool." 

The portable chimes and blinks a few times before popping open. 

"Sweet I got it open." He opens the safe open completely and grins. "I found that spare part!"

"No clue what the means but congrats." Icarus shoots him her signature flat look. "Can we leave now, it smells like dead bodies in here." 

Leon suddenly feels the need to point out that there was most definitely in the room not even five feet away from her and that smell was going to be throughout the entire goddamn police department since everyone was _dead._ On the other hand, he didn't feel like being a smart ass at the moment so he'll settle for keeping quiet on the matter. 

"Let's check the third floor." 

Thankfully, there are no other run-ins with the bumbling undead, only the discovery of a padded locker and a key. 

"Spade key." Leon quickly tucks the object into one of his pouches and turns on his heel to face Icarus. "Let's double-back to Marvin, I've seen this shape before on a door. West Office I think. " 

"Well, you know this place better than I do, Officer," replies Icarus dryly and her eyes catch his own. She inclines her head. "I'm ready when you are." 

❖❖

The West Office is littered with the same dead bodies as before and stink of rot. Icarus passes them with unfeeling eyes and Leon with a churning gut as he remembers how they were supposed to be his colleagues. 

"Did you know them?" 

"What?" 

"Did you know them," Icarus repeats, albeit a bit more carefully this time. She makes a gesture to where a glassy-eyed fallen officer lay and says, "Before they died." 

"No, it's my first day here." 

Surprise doesn't show blatantly on the woman's face, but the slow blink of her eyes is obvious. "You're fucking with me." 

The laugh that leaves him lacks any humor. "I wish." 

"We should go to therapy together ya know if we don't die." 

"I think I'll take you up on that." 

His hunch about the door proves right, and it flies up to provide him with blinding but warm light. Marvin is waiting for both of them with a pained look in his eyes that slightly eases when he catches wind of them. 

"Lieutenant," Icarus says in place of a greeting. "You look like shit." 

"Yes, good to see you too, Icarus." Marvin inclines his head in greeting, face screwing up momentarily before relaxing. "I need you two to look at this." 

One of Marvin's fingers hover one of the keys of the computer then presses down. 

The camera zooms in to fill the screen, revealing a woman standing behind a gate. 

Leon brightens in an instant. "Yes! I knew she'd make it!" 

Icarus curiously peeks over his shoulders. "Who's that?" 

"Her name's Claire. I came into town with her. We got separated when my car exploded." 

"And I thought I was having a shitty day," says Icarus underneath her breath with a quiet exhale of disbelief. Her arms come up to fold across her chest. "You have shitty luck, Kennedy." 

"Why thank you, Ms. Icarus." Leon quips back flatly, blue eyes rolling momentarily but lips still quirking up. Just a bit. 

Marvin clears his throat. "You can get to that courtyard through the second floor..east side." 

"I'll stay here." Icarus gestures towards Marvin. "He needs to be treated." 

Leon nods. "Right, I'll be back as soon as possible." 

He makes his way towards the stare, pausing when his name is called. He looks over his shoulder. Icarus is watching him, eyes dark and face still unreadable. 

"If you die out there, I'll kick your ass." Is all she says, and he turns his head to hide the smile that spreads across his face. 

"Yes, ma'am." 

And then, he's off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so much planned and I'm so excited guys!!


	5. Where's My Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Icarus is NOT having a good time right now but when is she ever?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I beat The Last of Us 2 in four days and boy oh boy am I still recovering from the emotional trauma I endured. On the bright side, we hit 100 reads so thank you for that!

* * *

  
Icarus can easily remember the day she had received her acceptance letter quite vividly. She remembers the smell of rain and the crunch of leaves beneath her sneakers as she took her time walking home. Her fingers bunched around the straps of her backpack, mindful of the ice skates tied on one side. Next to her, Eli chattered on mindlessly, gesticulating wildly as he failed to notice her mind was elsewhere. It's not the first time. 

"And she was totally flirting with me but I turned her down and-geez, Ic, are you even listening?" Eli huffs and shoots her a glare. "I was just getting to the good part." 

"Sorry, I'm still thinking about...ya know." Icarus trails off while carefully averting her eyes. They've been boyfriend and girlfriend for three months now, only after four months of one-sided pining (on Eli's behalf) and another five months of secret dating behind her father's back before he finally...croaked.Kicked the bucket. Died under very sudden and unfortunate circumstances. You get the point. 

Eli's face screws up in annoyance. "Babe, I told you I didn't even flirt with her."

The sigh that passes Icarus's lips goes unnoticed when she quickly interrupts and says, "I was talking about the funeral, Eli. For my Dad." 

"Oh." Eli blanches, green eyes widening as he struggles for the right words. "Shit, uh, yeah I'm sorry about that but he was an asshole, right? So what's there to miss? Just don't think about it.' 

**_'Just don't think about it.'_** Icarus thinks to herself. **_'Just forget the abuse and the trauma and don't think about how you're the reason he's dead. It's that simple, Icarus, just don't think about it.'_**

Her mailbox appears in view. "Oh, we're here." 

"I know, Ic, I've been here a bunch of times." 

"Thanks for walking me, Eli," Icarus quietly says hiking her backpack higher over her shoulder. He stares down at her for a moment, a look she can't decipher passing his eyes before his head tilts and a smirk twists his face. 

"Well someone has gotta protect you from the bad guys, right?" 

The smirk dies down into something soft when a rare, quiet laugh exits her mouth. "You know I don't need protecting." 

"Pfft, let a guy wanna protect his girlfriend now and then, yeah? I never get to be the hero." 

"You're such a goof." Icarus's laughter grows just a tad louder as she spins on her heel and shakes her head. "I'll keep that in mind next time someone tries to jump you." 

"That was one time!" 

"Uh-huh." 

"No goodbye kiss?" He calls after her. 

"You didn't earn it today!" Icarus tosses over her shoulder and forces herself to duck her head so he wouldn't see the giddy grin that spreads across her face. Although Eli had his faults, he always knew how to cheer her up. 

The minute she steps into her house, the smile drops. 

It's the most silent it's ever been in years, all of her siblings moving out and never returning one by one the minute the news of their father's death finally spread. The silence drives her nuts. Feels her head with a fuzziness she can't seem to get rid of. A haze of swirling thoughts and memories seared permanently more than the ink on her skin. An itch she can't quite reach and a tension that settles in the air and weighs down on her bones, thick and heavy and _suffocating._

"Mom?" Icarus calls out hesitantly, slipping the backpack from off of her shoulders and dropping it by the entrance. There's another pair of shoes by the door, unfamiliar and intriguing enough to catch her attention. Icarus tilts her head. Men shoes. 

"Icarus? I'm in the kitchen, there's someone I'd like you to meet!" There's a cheerful ring to her mother's voice, a stark bright contrast from the dead monotone Icarus was used too. The quiet 'Welcome Home' and dull 'I love you, be safe'. There's change. Abrupt and sudden and a little too fast for a woman whose husband just died a few weeks ago. 

Or maybe, Icarus was taking too long to move on?

All of her siblings got over it. She knew their job lives were thriving, and their love lives at their all-time high. Meanwhile, she couldn't even make it to third base with Eli let alone second. And on top of that, she couldn't keep a job since with every job interview she bombed and her ice-skating schedule. It was best to keep herself busy so she wouldn't feel the stares. The judgment of her very soul. 

Sometimes, she could still feel the bruises. The broken bones. The busted lips. The black eyes. Other times she could still smell the gun smoke. The gun powder. She could taste the cold metal. She could feel liquored breath screaming against her neck and the toxic plume of cigarette smoke. She could still hear the heavy footsteps at night, pacing back and forth. The shouting. The demands to _try harder._

Oliver Gray was dead. She watched the man being lowered into the ground. She helped create the obituary. She was there when he flatlined. 

So why did he still have control over almost every aspect of her life?

_'Just another question I don't have an answer to'_

"Who's this?" Icarus catches wind of the friendly hazel eyes and feels her body tense as she eyed him up and down. He was nearing six feet with a slightly average build that barely shown in the baggy sweats he was wearing. She could take him if-

"Stop sizing him up, Icarus." Her mother giggles- _giggles-_ a high pitched noise that rang genuine and unharmed and _safe._ "This is my boyfriend, Julio!" 

Julio's eyes crinkle around the edges when he smiles at her. Warm and polite. "Your mother speaks quite highly of you." 

_Liar._

Icarus shakes her head. "No, she doesn't." She turns around to exit and misses his expression. "She'd never talk about her only fuck-up."

There's an outraged call her of name that she ignores as she heads up the stairs. 

There's still blood on the steps. A hole in the wall, just above the handrail. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the fighting. The sound of fist against skin and furious shouting. 

If she concentrated harder, she could hear the whistling of the bullet passing her ear and the thundering clap of noise it made when exiting the gun. 

Icarus doesn't close her eyes. Doesn't concentrate. Doesn't listen. 

When she enters her room, there's an envelope waiting on her desk already ripped open. Her Mom had gone through her mail _again._

Sighing, Icarus grabs the mail and drops down onto her bed. She pulls the letter from the envelope and begins to read. 

**Eclipse University**

_**Congratulations! Your application has been reviewed by-** _

Icarus stops reading. 

  
She had just got accepted into a college she didn't even want to go to.

❖❖❖

There's static in her head that she just can't seem to kill. 

It's nothing big really, nothing more than a faint buzz like a small swarm of mosquitoes that faded into the background during a hot summer night. But it's still there and forcibly pushed back as all of the medical knowledge Icarus remembers sleeping through during class comes flooding back in a haze of information and hushed voices that sounded a bit like all of her past professors speaking at once. 

Reading wasn't her strong point, it never will be, when she didn't understand and stared for too long the letters would float and switch around and if it weren't for the fuck ton amount of pictures and diagrams in the textbooks, she would've been screwed. It's how she managed the first year of medical school, to begin with. 

She was still no good at medical school when compared to the other students. She didn't have the drive and she couldn't find it in her to make friends when everyone only cared about competition. Overall, Icarus fucking _hated_ medicine. She hated hospitals, scrubs, pills, and needles, and all of that shit. It sucked. Rubbed her all the wrong ways. Reminded her of dull regretful eyes and raspy apologies and faltering heartbeats. 

Her professors, however, said she'd make a decent enough doctor. She was one of the rare students who could keep a straight face when being exposed to injuries. Car accidents, acid burns, fire burns, _anything_.

Maybe that's why she feels so calm when inspecting Marvin's wound. At least, she thinks she's calm. Her heart is about to beat itself out of her goddamn chest but her hands aren't shaking and her face doesn't twitch....so she's calm. 

(She isn't.)

  
"How bad is it?" Marvin's voice makes her realize that she's been staring at his wound for a good thirty seconds. A decent chunk of his stomach was missing, oozing out blood. There are teeth marks- _human teeth_ \- indented around the wound and haggard strings of detached skin. Her nose wrinkles. The pictures would never compare to the real deal.

(The static gets a little louder. Her stomach sorta hurts). 

"It looks like someone bit the shit out of you, "she says dully and starts unwrapping the spare gauze. "Isn't much I can do but those herbs might take the pain off a little." 

Marvin doesn't reply, but she can still feel his eyes on her as she grinds the herb leaves into a powder. Combinations were something she could work with. It was based on memorization and probability. If there was one thing Icarus could be confident she'd always remember in one of her lessons, it's combining fucking herbs. 

"Your brother would be proud of you, you know," Marvin speaks into the silence, his voice nothing more than a pained wheeze. "He'd be proud of the woman you're growing into." 

  
"Last time I saw my brother, he said and I quote 'If I ever see you again, I'll beat your ass worse than Dad ever has' and then I punched him in the face." Icarus deadpans as she carefully lines the powder along the gauze. "I doubt he'd care about my character development." 

"He was just hard on you cause he cared. Didn't wanna see you behind bars and he was mad about his forced transfer from the S.T.A.R.S. unit." 

She withholds a scoff. "Sure, whatever you say, Lieutenant, lift your arm." 

Marvin lifts. Icarus begins wrapping. 

"Does he know why you did what you did?" 

"No clue what you're talking about." The lie falls easily. She loops the gauze. 

"You can't avoid it forever." 

Icarus shrugs. "I mean going under the assumption that Raccoon City has gone to complete shit, I actually can. Just gotta avoid my brother for the rest of my life." 

She loops it again. 

"If that's the case, promise me you'll stay outta trouble when this blows over. When you get outta here." 

**_'He isn't going to make it. We both know that.'_ **

Icarus finds herself exhaling slowly throughout her mouth, fingers twitching as she creates a small knot. "I don't do promises."

She did at some point and it fucking ended terribly. That ship sailed, crashed into an iceberg, flipped the fuck over, and then was sucked into a whirlpool. 

"Icarus." 

"I'll stay outta trouble, especially now that you won't bail me out anymore." 

More like he can't.

"You have to say it, Icarus." 

**_'Remember the last time you made a promise with someone, Icarus? Remember where it got you? You'll only get hurt. You always get hurt. Only you.'_ **

"I promise."

Damn it. Damn it. _Damn it_.

Marvin's face doesn't relax, but an accomplished smile still makes its way across his face. He lets his head fall back and shallowly exhales through his mouth. "You're a good kid, Icarus."

(The swarm of mosquitoes doesn't sound like background noise anymore). 

"Yeah, just get some rest old man."

It doesn't take long for Marvin to slip into the realms of unconsciousness, breathing no easier from when she first saw him earlier. She rises to her feet and walks over to the item chest where she takes a seat atop. Icarus brushes a few stray strands of silver hair out of her face and buries her face into her palms. The woman can't bring herself to relax even with the absence of shambling footsteps and low groans. 

She digs the heel of her hands into her eye sockets until dots explode across her vision. 

Her thoughts start to race. 

**_A bite._ **

**_Whatever the fuck is going on is being spread around from a bite. The infection doesn't take long, maybe a few hours? It took Joel in less than twenty-four hours and it's getting Marvin maybe less. Can it spread to animals? Insects? No fucking clue. Whatever it is, it's deadly. Obviously._ **

**_Need to find answers. Need to find Hyperion. Need to get the hell out of Raccoon City._ **

**_  
This disease (Infection? Whatever) is spreading fast and it might get outside of the city. Will it reach back home? Will it reach the government? Will it be contained? At this rate, probably not unless they like bomb the shit out of it...But they wouldn't bomb the city, right?_ **

**...**

**_Nah, they'd definitely bomb it._ **

**_Get the fuck out of this Police Station, split ways with Kennedy, find Hyperion, and then get the fuck out of Raccoon City. Easy. Simple._ **

_"Uh, Marvin, I've got a situation here..."_

Icarus's head snaps up. 

" _I'm surrounded by zombies! Marvin, do you copy? Marvin!?"_

"Goddamn it." Her feet hit the floor with a quiet squeak and she heads off to the spot where Marvin rested. He's in the same position as before but when her footsteps halt a few feet away, his eyes slide open.

Glazed. Clouded. Empty. Mindless. _Dead._

Her throat suddenly hurts and her chest feels too tight and for a moment the world around her is a blur of surroundings and jumbled light. She didn't know Marvin well. They weren't friends or anything, but he looked out for her. Hell, he's the reason why she didn't serve any time in jail when that...incident happened. He was the one who randomly dropped by to make sure she was eating right and helped her score the job at the coffee shop. 

Marvin and Icarus weren't friends. She didn't have friends. 

But, fuck, seeing him like this struck up a foreign feeling she didn't get to feel often. 

**_'You don't get to feel anything, not until it's over.'_ **

The sound of Marvin's body hitting the ground isn't loud but still reverberates in the back of her brain. Her body hums with energy she can't identify, barely contained, and just a little violent. 

**_'Not_ _until it's over.'_**

Icarus crouches down to grab Marvin's radio and brings it to her mouth. She hesitates for a second and then says, "Kennedy, it's Icarus." 

Not even a second passes before the radio crackles to life with static. 

_"Icarus! Is everything alright?"_

"No," her fingers tighten around the radio without much thought. "Marvin didn't make it." 

_"Shit, are you okay?"_

No. 

"I'm alright, Kennedy, I just had to put Marvin down." 

Like some animal. Like they weren't just talking fewer than-what- ten-twenty minutes ago? 

_"I'm not too far from you I'll start heading your way and-"_

"Kennedy, I said I'm fine." 

_"-We can regroup. It's better if we stick together, right?"_

She struggles to find the right words. 

_"Icarus, you there?"_

She pulls the radio away and releases her hold from the button. "Fuck. _Fuck_." Icarus pulls the radio back. Pushes down. "I'll be waiting, Kennedy just...be careful." 

_"Yes ma'am."_

❖❖❖

Out of respect, Icarus drapes some cloth she finds over Marvin's body after carefully sliding out the kunai plunged in his forehead and returns to her spot on the item chest. Her mind pushes and recedes like ocean waves, threatening to pull her under. 

It didn't happen often, she was generally a laidback person. Sure, sometimes she'd cry really hard while curled up in a ball with shaking hands and all that but it was only... _sometimes_. It was the only thing she successfully kept from her therapist since last time she told someone about it-that person being Eli-it had been thrown right back in her face. 

She doesn't know how long she stays like this. Hands shaking and world blurring. It could be seconds, minutes, maybe an hour it all feels the same. Ticking away at the sluggish speed of molasses. Tears never fall but she comes real close. Damn it, she shouldn't have left Henry in the Saferoom; at least he didn't judge her. 

"Icarus!" 

At the call of her name, she looks up and is met with the sight of a relieved smile and stupidly kind eyes. Leon stops a few feet away from her.

"Are you alright?" 

"Fantastic," she responds dryly and closes her eyes. She pinches the bridge of her nose. "Greatest I've felt in years." 

**_'C'mon, Ic, get your shit together. Now is not the time. Well, there's never a time to be like this. Fuck, Eli was right. She was truly fucked up. Who the hell cries over a man they barely even knew but barely sheds a tear at their father's funeral? '_ **

After a few hot seconds of silence, she sighs. "Just give me a minute." 

"Do you want me to get Henry?" 

That catches her completely off guard. "What?" 

Leon tilts his head. "He's your emotional support fish, right? I can go grab him real quick and we can take a break if-" 

Her eyes open again to shoot him a look of complete disbelief. "Are you serious?" 

The analysis of human expression is a skill Icarus excelled in compared to her other siblings. Something she learned to hone and slowly perfect after one too many betrayals. To her, people were easier to read than books. She didn't have to worry about comprehension, the floating letters, or the metaphors of life the author was trying to convey.

Instead, she could focus on the slight change in body language, a flicker of facial expression, or the flitting movement of hands. Its easier to get a read on people because people lie and deceive and betray. 

Icarus holds Leon's gaze, searching and analyzing because Leon _had_ to be one of those people. No one could be that genuine, right? They just met. This too-trusting, too-naive personality had to be a front. Get her to drop her guards and-

"Did I say something wrong?" 

"Oh my God." Icarus harshly scrubs a hand down her face and groans. She couldn't fool herself. Leon was just really fucking nice. "No, no I'm good." 

"But Henry-" 

Seriously fucking nice. 

(The static starts to recede. She can feel her fingers tingle). 

"I'll be fine without him," she quickly cuts him off while shaking her head. "Just tell me what happened out there with uh Claire, Claire, right?" 

Subject change that Leon takes that bait for. Thankfully. 

Claire, Icarus learns, is quite capable of handling herself while in search of her brother, Chris Redfield. Something about the last name rings familiar, she's definitely heard it before, but it'll take a little research before Icarus could scrounge up any memory of it.

Leon planned on meeting up with her later went the time calls for it and Icarus could worry about that later. From the way Leon talked about her, Claire was quite trustworthy, but at the same time, she just established that Leon was stupidly nice. 

_'Or maybe you should trust his judgment.'_ Her mind suggests unhelpfully, and the groan she gives is thankfully inward. 

"...And I found a medallion!" Leon fishes around in one of his pouches and whips out said object. He passes the object over into her hand to let Icarus examine it. The woman brings it close to her face and flips it over. 

"A unicorn?" asks Icarus flatly, and Leon nods. "Remind me what we need these for again?" 

"The Police Station is used to be some old museum-" 

"Explains the shitty statues." 

"-and there's supposed to be an exit underground but we need the medallions to unlock it." Leon finishes while pulling out a book. He hands it over to her. "One of the pages is torn but-" 

Icarus promptly stops listening. It's a little fucked up, considering how she technically did ask about whatever the hell Leon was talking about, she just didn't feel like processing all of that information. She already misses simpler times, when all she had to worry about was fucking up a coffee order and trying not to laugh when someone slipped on the ice rink and trying to muster up the courage to confront her sister after steadily avoiding her and the entire family for a few months. 

Okay, so she didn't really miss that last part, but you get the point. 

Leon talks for a good two minutes, undeterred by her blank stare. 

"Do you think that's a good plan?" He asks carefully, and she gives a good slow blink. 

"I mean, I still think climbing out of the nearest window is our best bet but your plan sounds good too." Icarus hands the book back and kicks off the item chest. "Although, I've been told multiple times that I'm a very shitty planner." 

"Yeah, I can see that; you know there's like a shit ton of those things out there banging on the windows right?"

Icarus watches as the book manages to fucking fit inside the tiny pouch-honestly it made no fucking sense-and waves her hand dismissively. "We could totally worry about that when we get there, you're actually a pretty good shot with that thing." 

Leon goes through the motions of reloading his weapon. "Speaking of, we need to get you another weapon besides..." 

"Kunai," Icarus chips in. "And I don't do guns, Kennedy, my aim is like fucking terrible. Like really fucking bad, I might shoot you on accident." 

Nevermind the fact that she can't seem to think straight whenever a gun is in her goddamn hands. The weapon always felt too heavy, and too cold and she could still hear _his_ voice screaming at her to just _'shoot goddamn it, it's not that difficult!'_

"I've literally been training for this my entire life," she tries to make her voice reassuring, but only manages to come out more flat and _maybe_ just a little depressing. "I'll be fine." 

"But you can't depend on kunai the entire time!" Leon protests, brows furrowing. "I can teach you how to shoot!" 

"Believe me, my sister already tried and she's the best sharpshooter in the family." Icarus casts her gaze to the ground. "It did _not_ end well." 

"How-" 

"The bullet ricocheted and shot her foot," says Icarus blandly. "And we had to rush her to the hospital while me and my brother cried in the backseat." 

"Well, I'm not your sister." 

"Are you calling her a shitty teacher?" 

"Is that the same sister who married your boyfriend?" 

"Yup, the one and only." 

"Then she's a terrible teacher." Leon shoots her a beaming smile. "So we're gonna find you a gun and I'm gonna teach you how to shoot." 

There's a determination in his voice that makes Icarus feel all tingly inside. Besides Marvin, Leon would be the first person to not give up on her so quickly. Not for the first time that night, Icarus catches her staring at her Leon in complete and utter befuddlement. In a weird way, he reminded her of Wendy. Genuine, straightforward, and...kind. Ugh. 

Icarus breaks her gaze and shakes her head, the corners of her lips barely curving up. "You're weird, Leon Kennedy." 

If she had turned back, she would've caught the brief moment of sudden realization that spread across Leon's face. 

"I guess we can get back to exploring but only if you're up to it." Leon watches Icarus carefully for any signs of discomfort. 

Icarus's face is that blank mask again but something about her seems more relaxed. "I'm following you, Kennedy." 

The 'I'm okay' goes unsaid.

Leon's face breaks out into a grin. "Good, let's go." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I'm plotting out more characters and some other additions and I'm super excited about Leon and Icarus's relationship! Next chapter is gonna focus on some more exploring and then it's gonna really pick up. Hehe.


	6. Alone Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our duo discover that zombies aren't the only thing lurking in the police station and Leon just can't seem to stop apologizing much to Icarus's bemusement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Online school is whooping my ass rn but I'm gonna write whenever I have the free time!!

They stop in the Dark Room.

Leon manages to correlate a bullshit excuse of needing to develop some film that he had stored which is still partially true but is mostly fueled by wanting to give Icarus a break. Surprisingly, Icarus doesn’t call him out on the lie and just quietly agrees without much thought. 

Icarus still keeps her distance from him and on more than one occasion does he find himself straining his ears to hear her footsteps as they navigate the quiet halls. 

“I’m gonna develop this film real quick. Stay here.” 

“Yes, because right now is a perfect time to go for a fucking stroll.” Icarus’s sarcastic drawl rolls off of him like water. 

“Mhmm, great weather isn’t it?” He tosses over his shoulder and disappears into the smaller section of the room. Icarus’s quiet scoff doesn’t go unheard. 

When he finishes developing the film, revealing a familiar statue holding a book and staff of some kind, he flips the light back on and neatly folds the photo to place into one of his pouches. Icarus doesn’t look up from her place on the table, fingers idly tracing the rim of the fishbowl. 

“How are you feeling?” 

“I’m fine, Kennedy, I can handle myself.” 

“I know but I wouldn’t blame you if you were freaking out.” 

“Are _you_ freaking out?” she asks dryly, and when he looks up there’s a curious glint in her eyes. If she were any other person, he'd assume that they were mocking him. But there's a genuine inquisitiveness in her coal-colored eyes as she waits for his response. 

“Honestly?” Leon doesn’t have to contemplate an answer. “Yeah, I’m freaking out a little bit.” 

Handling nervousness has never been his strongest point but he’s always been pretty damn good at hiding it. 

“Never imagined my first day going like this that's all.” He takes out his map and unfolds it to distract the fact that his hands were very much shaking. “I saw a man getting his face chewed on when I stopped at the gas station.” 

“That’s fucked.” 

“Yup,” he echoes and the silence feels suffocating. He was still having a little trouble wrapping his head around what the hell was happening. Still having trouble processing the death of Marvin, a man he barely met. A man he didn’t get to know. He thinks of the other officer, Elliot, and hears stomach-churning screams. "Very fucked.” 

“I’m not freaking out,” says the woman quietly. “My dad made sure every single one of his kids wouldn’t crack under pressure no matter the situation which is kinda funny since Apollo has anxiety. ” She shakes her head. “If it makes you feel any better, I was supposed to show my students the program I skated that won me gold at the State Championships.”

There’s a look in her eyes that comes and passes just like when they were in the Main Hall not that long ago. Icarus was good at hiding her emotions- _extremely good-_ but Leon could still catch the brief and fickle moments of the real her behind that wall. 

Mustering a smile, he says, “Tell me about your students.”

And she does. 

❖❖❖

After some brief contemplation, Leon ultimately decides they should double-check the third floor just in case they had missed something. 

“Your hunch proves correct,” Icarus murmurs when they step foot in an uninvestigated hallway. “We completely missed a dead fucking in.”

He aims his light a little lower. “No, there’s a letter!” 

Grumbling beneath her breath, Icarus still follows after him when he walks closer to the letter and grabs it with one hand. 

He begins to read aloud. 

**Consider this a gift for anyone still unfortunate enough to be alive.** **Keep your eyes peeled for those creepy fucks that look like they were skinned alive-** **  
****“Lickers,” we call ‘em.**

 **They’re** _blind as bats,_ **but their hearing makes up for that.**

**So as long as you don’t run around like a total idiot, guns a-blazing, you should be able to slip right by them...probably.**

**Either way, make like my grandma and creep around as slow as possible around ‘em, yeah?**

**Anyway, not that I wanna go, but duty calls. That, and I’ve got a friend to avenge.**

**David** ********

“Lickers,” the woman echoes flatly sounding rather unimpressed. “Can’t wait to see whatever the fuck these things look like.” ****

“Let’s hope we don’t have to encounter them,” replies Leon, voice just as a flat. He aims his flashlight in her direction and lifts a brow. “You alright?” ****

“I don’t need a mental check-in every five seconds, Officer.” The scathing tone bounces off of him harmlessly. “Just fucking lead.” ****

“Yes, boss." He replies smartly.

"Fuck you." ****

He leads them to The West Storage Room, a room they somehow managed to bypass as they trekked up and down the one-way hallway. The room is beyond messy with a few blood trails here and there and a decomposing body hanging upside from the ceiling that Icarus inspects as he attaches a newly found pouch to his waist. The extra storage is very much needed.

"I wonder how he got up there," the woman muses aloud and Leon shrugs. 

"Maybe he was repairing the ceiling," he tries as a half-assed joke and earns a dry, sharp laugh. He glances around the room eyeing the rusted bars and the statue behind them. He recognized it from the journal and had no doubt it held the last medallion he needed. A piece of folded paper catches his eye and he grabs it with curious fingers. Unlike the last one, it isn't smeared with blood around the edges but the lettering is just as rough and a bit blurred. 

_Damn these corporate assholes! They cut me off! After all I've done for them! But if that's how it's gonna be, so be it. I'm gonna have a little fun of my own as the world goes to shit._

_I boarded all those filthy pigs up in a steel pen, and set some C4. All I gotta do is_ **detonate** _it and it's "sayonara suckers!"  
_

_But it's no fun if it's over too soon, so maybe I'll give that one raving loon something to really squeal about._

_Yeah, maybe I'll give him a little toy and tell him "Kill the guy next to you and I'll spare the others." I wonder what he'll do."_

_You yell about "justice' and "pride" but how many times did you go against me, your own superior?_

_Yeah, you're such a good cop...So good you had to die._

_Man is this fun. I need some music for this._

Leon blinks slowly and places the letter back down as he processes what he just read. 

Icarus whistles lowly. "Damn, and I thought I had issues." 

"Yeah," he finds himself replying distantly. "I found the detonator earlier in the Operations Room but it didn't have any batteries." 

"Okay," Icarus nods and then shoots him a look. "Why do we need a detonator?" 

He points to the statue. "It has the last medallion." 

"Of course it does." 

He pulls out his map and inspects it carefully. "Alright, I have an idea." 

The plan is pretty simple. Considering the fact that the 2nd floor hadn't been completely examined and the solution was the valve he left behind in the East Office earlier _and_ he also needed to get the shotgun from the Security Deposit, the two would split and meet back in the Shower Room.

A part of him didn't like the idea of sending Icarus off alone with no gun, flashlight, _or_ a map, but the woman made it abundantly clear that she could very much handle herself and knew this place well enough after a quick glance to his map. Even if her lack of items also lowered her chances of survival. 

Leon _seriously_ needed to get his hands on another gun. 

"Radio me if anything happens." 

"I will." 

"And watch out for corners. Those things like to creep." 

"I know." 

"And-" 

"Kennedy, I swear to God." She inhales sharply. "I will kick the shit out of you if you say something else." The threat sounds promising but is deftly ignored as he unclips his combat knife from his belt and holds it out to her. 

"Just be careful, Icarus." 

She stares at him for a hot moment but he never drops his hand. The woman takes it with a roll of her eyes. "I'll be back in five minutes. Ten tops." 

He aims the flashlight to her back when she turns away, her footsteps are still silent. "Don't forget to-" 

"Yeah, yeah I fucking know! Just grab the shotgun and don't die!" She shouts over her shoulder and then rounds the corner. 

❖❖❖

Thankfully, he doesn't die and instead finds himself with the slightly familiar weight of a shotgun in his hands as he carefully examines it. It reminds him of the times he spent with his father, in the woods, with a rifle in his too clumsy hands and nothing but the gentle whispers of the wind. 

A brief memory of shooting a shotgun for the first time floats into mind and he almost winces. It wasn’t a pleasant experience but his father’s laughter would be something he’d never forget. 

The radio attached to his waist cackles to life. _“I got the valve, Kennedy, I should be there in shit-”_

Static. 

His feet are already heading towards the exit before he could stop himself, radio to his mouth as he urgently says, “Icarus?” 

_“...goddamn it fucking frog.”_ Icarus sounds relatively unharmed if not a little pissed. _“How the hell did that even get in here?”_

“You scared the hell outta me for a second.” Leon pivots on his heel and starts heading down the hall. “I thought you got attacked.” 

_“Yeah by a goddamn frog, I almost dropped the valve on my foot.”_

“I guess a frog is better than a zombie.” 

_“Yeah, I’ll see you there in three, Castellanos out.”_

True to her words, Icarus arrives three minutes after he steps foot into the Shower Room with the valve in her hand. She attaches the valve to its rightful place and twists it with little resistance. The piping hot steam dies down into nothingness. 

Brittle tile cracks underneath Icarus’s shoes as she takes a slow step forward into the bathroom. Leon lets her take a few steps forward before following after her, Matilda drawn and aimed low. 

She shifts to give him a better view over her shoulder. A body sat on the bench a few feet in front of them, slumped over in a position that obscured their face. Icarus does the honors of dispatching it before it even gets the chance to rise. 

The woman enters the room. Checks left. Right. Turns to face him. “It’s clear.” 

Leon follows in after her with a thoughtful look on his face. The room they’re in, if he remembers correctly, was unlabeled on the map and by the looks of it was just an extension of the Shower Room. He makes a beeline for the unopened lockers while casually saying, “You know, you’re good at this...survival stuff.” 

Icarus gives a small hum before responding, “Told you my Dad trained me for this shit. I don’t think he had zombies in mind when it came to the end of the world but survival training is survival training.”

He flips open another locker and grabs the gunpowder stored inside. “So you’ve been training all this time?” 

“I mean I stopped when he kicked the bucket,” she’s shrugging when he turns to face her. “We all did. But he did a good job of making sure we’d never forget.” Icarus wipes off the blood on her weapon onto her pants with a blank look. “He beat good instincts into us.” 

Leon grimaces. Leave it up to him to bring up unpleasant memories. “I-"

“Don’t.” Icarus’s voice is sharp and she brushes past him and pushes open the door. He trails after her. 

“Icarus, let me at least-” 

“Shut up.” 

“But-”

 _“Shut the fuck up,”_ she hisses harshly, and this time her words are accompanied by an elbow to his side. “Look.” 

He sweeps his gaze from left to right, stomach no longer churning at the sight of splattered blood. There’s a trail of corpses across the wet floorboards. 

He pans his gaze upwards and _oh._

Even in the creeping shadows and absent light, Leon could make out the faint outline of _something_ on the ceiling. 

A body falls to the floor. It lands right next to another motionless corpse.

“What In God’s name,” his voice barely picks up over the howling wind. His grip tightens around the flashlight when it starts to crawl closer. He could make out more visible features of taut muscle and...a brain where its eyes would be.

Voice low, Icarus says, “It doesn’t see us. It can’t.” Her body is tense. “We can sneak around it. Rain should mask our footsteps. Probably." 

Leon nods and progresses forward with light steps. He feels like the wind yowls louder and he swears the rain is torrential up here and far off from the pitter-pattering on the first floor. His footsteps are painfully slow. Like days and weeks were passing by, but not once does he move his pinning stare. 

**_CREAK_ **

He hears a sigh of defeat followed by a quiet,” _Fuck.”_

The thing’s head snaps towards their direction. A tongue-about the size of a goddamn ten-foot pole- dangles from its opened mouth as it begins to crawl forward on all fours. He catches a glimpse of dangerously sharp claws that somehow glint in the barely provided light. 

Double fuck. 

_“Go!”_ Icarus shouts and Leon _bolts_. 

There’s an ungodly screech, a higher pitch than the low rumbles it was emitting earlier and then-

Icarus is tackling him to the floor. 

They fall to the ground in a tangled heap, narrowly missing the spot the Licker pounces on. The woman recovers quickly, scrambling to her feet and jumping back to avoid another lunge. With dangerous dexterity, Icarus sends a flurry of kunai forward with one hand and unsheathes the combat knife with the other. 

“Get up, Kennedy, we gotta move!” 

Her harsh words snap him out of his stupor and reel his mind into order as he jumps to his feet. _They’re blind as bats, but their hearing makes up for that._ Okay, okay blind creatures with heightened senses. Heightened hearing. Its ears were sensitive, right? How the fuck was he going to beat-

Oh.

_Flashbang._

“Cover your eyes!” He orders while tearing the flashbang from his belt. The pin releases with a click and without hesitation, he throws the flashbang down at his feet. There’s a standstill-a pause-and enough time for Leon to shield his eyes before-

_BANG._

His ears ring, and he’s sure he’s seeing double when the Licker flops onto it’s back with a pained squeal but he pushes through the pounding in his head to wrap his fingers around the trigger, and _fire._

**Bang.**

The first bullet tears through its torso. 

He fires again. 

**Bang.**

Brain matter leaks and splatters against the floorboards. 

**Bang.**

The thing stops moving, but he knows things don’t fucking die down here so he fires again and again and a fucking again until-

_Click._

A hand lands on his shoulder and he whirls around reflexively aiming the gun at Icarus’s temple for the second time that night. Icarus blinks, showing no reaction to his frazzled state. 

“It’s dead, Kennedy.” 

He drops the gun immediately. “Shit, I’m sorry-” 

The woman quickly cuts him off with a shake of her head. “I’m fine. Just a scratch, I've had worse." 

Her hand is pressed into her side. Blood seeps through her fingers.

“No, you’re not, c’mon the S.T.A.R.S. room is right there.” He loops an arm around her waist and Icarus sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth. Fuck this was his fault. He fucking froze and now Icarus was hurt. 

Thankfully, the door is unlocked and opens with a nudge of his shoulder. Light blinds him for a split second, black spots scattering his vision as he drags Icarus into the secluded office. With a little help, she eases herself onto the desk, sending a few stray papers flying. 

“Where did it get you?” 

Despite the circumstances, Icarus still shoots him a stubborn but pained glare. “I told you I’m f-” 

_“Icarus,”_ he interrupts calmly and meets her gaze head-on. “Where did it get you?” 

There’s a tense silence. A battle of wills of who was going to relent first. It only takes a few seconds for Icarus to realize that Leon was just as- if not _more-_ stubborn than she was and she grumbles underneath her breath. 

“It skimmed my side.” Icarus moves her hand and lifts her arm. Her jaw clenched. “Honestly it’s not that deep.” 

Leon steps to the side while tilting his head. “Looks like it got a bit of your back. Take off your shirt.” 

“Yes, _Officer_.” She drawls while rolling her eyes, hands coming up to undo her shirt buttons. “Anything else?” 

“Stop being so goddamn stubborn,” he tries hopefully and she flips him off with one hand. He feels his shoulders ease. “It was worth a shot.” 

Leon makes a move to turn around but Icarus’s voice stops him, “Don’t even bother, you’re gonna have to patch me up and you can’t chicken out after ordering me to strip.” 

He distracts himself by reloading Matilda. “I didn’t _order_ you.” 

“I dunno sounded pretty demanding earlier,” she replies while popping open the last button. Her face contorts briefly when she starts to peel off the shirt, sticky with blood and sweat. He hovers awkwardly, unsure of what to do. He knows Icarus well enough that she didn’t want his assistance but he couldn’t just stand there. So lost in thought, he doesn’t even realize when Icarus pulls her arm free of the sleeve of her shirt and pulls off the rest of it. Icarus lets out a quiet hiss when the cool air hits her exposed skin. 

Leon unclips the first aid spray he had attached to his belt and raises it to her attention. “I’m gonna treat you now.” 

“Jesus fuck you’re so awkward,” she mutters. “You’ve gotten this far.” She turns her head away when he shuffles closer. “Let’s get this shit over with.” 

With closer inspection, he could see the three angry lines that started about midback and curved its way towards the right side of her torso. There's some harsh bruising around her shoulder too, already a range of blooming sickly colors. It was safe to say, everything looked pretty goddamn painful.

His eyes trail a little higher, lingering over the ink that stood out against her shoulderblade. A singular letter encased in a small box with intricate loops, almost covered by her bra strap. 

**‘G’** He wonders. What the hell did that stand for? 

“Not getting any younger, Kennedy.” 

“Right, uh sorry.” He shakes the spray and aims with a furrowed brow. “This is probably gonna sting.” 

“I can handle- _FUCK_!” Icarus jolts violently, voice-only raising a tad higher. “You’re a bitch.” 

“Mhm.” A small smile curls at his lips. “I think a ‘thank you Leon’ would suffice too.” 

“Fuck you.” 

The can empties within a matter of seconds and he tosses it to the floor without a second thought. After a brief second of searching his pouches, he comes up lucky with some leftover bandages. 

“I wanted to apologize earlier.” He says as he began dressing the wound. "I didn’t mean to bring up any unpleasant memories.” 

“It’s fine, Kennedy. Told you to stop apologizing didn’t I?” 

“But it’s not,” he insists while shaking his head. “I don’t know what you went through but I can imagine it’s pretty fucked and I’m sorry about the gun thing too, I sorta...freaked out. It shouldn’t have happened twice or at all." 

“I’m not...angry,” the woman finally mutters. “My Dad was an asshole up until his dying days and he fucking knew it, it’s why no one gave a damn when he finally croaked. He beat the shit out of his kids and his wife and when he needed us the most, no one was there. Its just how shit was and you didn’t know so stop fucking moping, you look like a kicked puppy.” 

Red starts to bloom through the white of the bandages and he gets work on layering it with careful fingers.

“I’d apologize again but I feel like you’d try to kick my ass if I did.” 

“Look at you, already have me all figured out.” She coos mockingly, wincing when Leon ties a tight knot with the bandage. “You did that on purpose.” 

Leon backtracks to survey his handy work and smiles in satisfaction. “I think I did a pretty good job.” 

Icarus rolls her shoulder while gently exhaling through her nose, eyes falling shut. Any kinds of discomfort had already been erased from her face completely.

“Not bad, Kennedy.” She braces back on the desk, giving Leon a better view of her toned stomach and the range of scars that littered it. There's a long jagged one that stands out to him in particular. She cracks her neck with a pleased sigh. “Give me a sec.” 

Leon averts his eyes. “Uh, yeah,” he coughs into his fist. “Take it easy, I’m gonna check out the rest of the room. See what I can find.” 

He pauses in the doorway when she calls out after him. "Thanks for patching me up....even though I didn't need it." There. Right there. Leon hears the shift in her voice. A hint of unsure hesitance. "And the flashbang thing was smart or whatever." 

He ducks his head feeling his face heat burn bright. A smile sneaks its way onto his face before he could stop it. "Yeah, we're in this together right?" 

"Together," Icarus echoes softly. She clears her throat, and when she speaks again, her voice is clear. It's not warm but it's not cold either. "Don't get any stupid ideas, Kennedy." 

Together.

"Yes ma'am." 

It wasn't much, but at least it was a start. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been bustling with ideas on how this story is gonna turn out but I have so little time to write but luckily I run on nothing but spite. Annnnd we hit 200 reads!!! Thank you so much. I love you guys so much.


	7. Shun The Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Icarus is complicated and Leon is really trying his best. As always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow updates yall my mental health has been in the gutter and it took like three friends to tell me that I needed therapy lmao but I'm feeling better now <3 
> 
> N e ways, writing Icarus is so complicated good sis is giving me emotional whiplash I can't take this shit.

As soon as they graduated highschool and moved to the promising city know as Raccoon City, Icarus and Eli moved in together. 

They live in the same apartment complex as her brother, Chiron, and on more than one occasion does Icarus find herself sprawled out on the couch, staring at diagrams and jotting down notes. 

“You need to rest, kid.”

She hasn’t slept in three days; the only thing running through her veins being caffeine and pure fucking spite, but it’s fine considering she’s been deprived of longer. 

“Not a kid, Chiron.” Icarus retorts but she flips the notebook shut and pulls her legs in to make room for him to sit on the couch. It sinks and creaks with the added weight of his heavy body.

At the fine age of twenty-seven, she could see fine silver streaks running through his curly hair, an odd trait that only he and his twin, Hyperion, shared. Icarus assumed it was the stress of being the oldest, carrying the burden of trying to fill in parental roles at a too young age. 

While Chiron wasn't one to voice his feelings about the hair, Hyperion was quite vocal about it and it wasn't long before Icarus dyed her entire hair silver to help the elder feel better about it. Her mother hated it, of course, said it made her look old and that she should be focusing on school and not wilding out, but Icarus knew what 'old' looked like. At least, she thought she did. At the moment, her brother looked centuries old, with tired lines bunching up his face and a heavy set to his shoulders that made it look like the world was weighing him down. 

**'Atlas would've been a more fitting name.'** The nineteen-year-old thinks mildly, coal-colored eyes scanning her brother. Vuneralibilty isn't something their family indulged in often (excluding their mother) but at the moment she could recognize all the signs of distress. For someone well over six feet and all broad shoulders and bulging muscles, Icarus has never seen someone look so small, not since her Father at least, and that was when he was on his death bed. 

Icarus pushes her feet into his lap and quietly says, “Something is bothering you.” 

“Mm fine,” the dismissal is heard loud and clear. 

And promptly ignored. 

“You know Chiron, you’ve always been such a shit liar out of all of us.”

“And you’ve always been a manipulative bitch.” He retorts and Icarus’s lips quirk up. To an outsider, his words might've sounded too harsh and dismissive, but to Icarus, it was just a typical response. Besides Troy, Chiron was the sibling she had gotten along with the easiest. Their father made sure to keep Icarus ostracizsed from her family, but Chiron was always around to treat her wounds in secret and sneak into her skating competitions. 

Slyly, she says, “I think that’s the best compliment you’ve ever given me. Now that we’ve established that yes I’m a manipulative bitch and can very much extract information from your colleagues, are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?” 

“You know how the Mayor is campaigning that Bright Raccoon 21 shit?” 

Icarus nods her head. “He wants to make an uh separate law enforcement or something? What’s it called? S.T.E.M?”

“S.T.A.R.S.” Her brother corrects flatly. “I’ve been recruited.” 

“And this is bad because…?” 

“Wesker is being recruited too.” 

“Ah, yes, your best friend.” Icarus drawls and huffs when he roughly pushes her feet out of his lap. They quickly find their place again. “You can’t seriously be considering rejecting the job cause of that asshole, right?”

Silence. 

She doesn’t know much about this Albert Wesker, has only seen pictures, and vaguely knows that he and her brother go way back. Chiron wasn’t much of a complainer, their Dad made sure they knew how to deal with shit with a closed mouth no matter the severity, but something about Albert Wesker made her brother’s blood boil, and on more than one occasion does she find herself on the end of his ranting. 

“Okay, remember that time these girls were picking on me cause I was the only black kid in that class?” She finally asks while shooting him a look. “And I wanted to give up skating all together?” 

“Yeah.” 

“What’d you tell me?” 

“Don’t let those assholes stop you from doing for what you’re good at that, show them that you’re better.” 

“Exactly,” the younger gives a firm nod. “And guess what?” 

“You made it to Championships.”

“I made it to fucking Championships,” Icarus smirks and nudges her brother with her feet.

“...but this isn’t ice skating, Icarus.” Chiron says and this time she pulls a foot back to kick him in the side. He shoots her an irritated look. “You’re an asshole.”  


“And you’re an idiot because this means that you have the opportunity to be out there on the field again instead of being on desk duty at that shitty ass department _and_ you’d probably be making more money anyway. If you look me in my eyes and tell me that you aren’t taking the job cause of some shady fucker who wears glasses inside then I’m telling Troy you were the one who scratched his car, Hyperion that you were the one who fucked up her project that one time, and Apollo that you were the one who broke his Gameboy and blamed it on Tyr.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

Icarus raises a brow in challenge. 

“Fuck, you’re evil.” 

“Mhmm, I’m gonna resume my studying now. Get the hell out.”

“This is _my_ living room.” 

“I live here more than you do!” 

❖ ❖ ❖ 

The S.T.A.R.S office is untouched with rows of cluttered desks and powered off computers. It’s unbelievably messy, like the occupants left in a hurry and tripped over themselves to escape but there’s no sign of gore or corpses. 

Unlike the West Office which had nametags to the corresponding desk, each desk had a hint of decor or some item that made it personalized. She beelines for the one crammed in the corner all the way in the back. It’s bare except for the sticker of a Centaur placed on the wood of the desk. Icarus idly traces it with her finger.

_“I’m leaving.”_

_“What seriously? Chiron, you can’t just leave, your transfer is only in a few days-"_

_“You don’t know what I saw, Icarus.”_

_“Well, it’s cause you won’t fucking tell me!”_

_“You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”_

_“C’mon don’t pull that shit, you can’t just tell me you’re going to fucking Europe in two weeks and expect me not to question it!”_

_“How about instead of worrying about me you worry about why Eli cheated on you.”_

_“Wow, Chiron, that’s low. Even for a piece of shit like you.”_

_“Fuck you.”_

_“No, fuck you! Face it and just admit that you’re just as fucked up as the rest of us, Chiron. You’re acting just like Dad being all high and mighty and refusing help when you know goddamn well you need it! Being the oldest doesn’t make you the best!”_

_“...”_

_“I just want to help, Chiron, you’re the only one who still talks to me.”_

_“Stay the fuck away from me, Icarus.”_

_“Chiron-”_

_“If I ever see you again, I’ll beat your ass worse than Dad ever has.”_

“Icarus, you listening?” 

The woman draws her gaze back to where Leon stared at her in clear worry. Shit, she completely missed out on what he was saying, so lost in thought. Instead of getting angry, he shoots her an easy smile. 

“I said that there’s an armory.” He repeats while pointing to the gated off part of the room. “Looks like the lock mechanism is computer activated and we need something to override the system.” 

Icarus approaches the bars that sealed off the armory and scans the room. It’s mostly bare, except for a gun attached to the wall and a-

“Crossbow,” she breathes in realization. “He left it.” 

“Who left what?” 

Icarus pulls away from bars and lets out a quiet breath of disbelief. She turns to face Leon. “My brother used to be a S.T.A.R.S member.” Her shoulder throbs when she crosses her arms but is stubbornly ignored. “He was uh ex-special forces and joined the police force around the same time my sister started working for Umbrella. He ended up being recruited on recommendation but it took me pressuring him into taking the job. He was happier. For a while.” 

And then he went on that mission and came back haunted. Icarus remembers the day of his return quite vividly. She remembers the weeks that followed too. The paranoia, the jumpiness, the nightmares, and late-night calls. Hyperion was always busy, so Icarus took it upon herself to focus on her brother. She recommended tips from her therapist, stayed up late with him under the guise of studying, and focused more on him. 

She focused less on school, less on work, and less on Eli. And for what? For Chiron to leave Europe to ‘get away’. It was bullshit. They both knew it. Icarus was the liar. Icarus was the manipulator. _Not_ Chiron. But, that day, she saw nothing but the truth in his eyes. A promise. A threat. 

“Anyways, each of my siblings has a special skillset with weapons and shit. Chiron was always good at archery, but he really liked the crossbow so Hyperion decided to get him one as a congratulations gift. Apparently, medicine isn't the only thing Umbrella is good at making." 

“And he left it behind?” 

“He left it behind,” she confirms. “He had special bolts that he always talked about. Showed me how to make them but would never let me shoot the fucking crossbow itself.” 

“You a good shot?” 

“I’m decent,” she shrugs. “I’m not a pro or anything, so don’t expect anything fancy. Unfortunately, you got stuck with the most unskilled sibling.” There isn’t any bitterness in her voice, just simple acceptance. As the youngest sibling, she didn’t get the same headstart as everyone else. Compared to Troy, who was considered the weakest, Icarus was even further below him. She didn’t have the same skills, the same techniques, and knack for firearms that passed onto to everyone _but_ her. It made sense why her Father was always so hard on her. 

“I dunno, you’ve got some damn good reflexes.” Leon points out. “Totally saved my ass.” 

“Mm, you’re just fucking slow,” she supplies and she watches him for a reaction. Her flat observation doesn’t even make a dent in Leon’s smile. “But you’re good with firearms.” 

Compliments are good her therapist says. Work on them, Icarus, and learn how to alleviate your blunt attitude. Maybe you’ll make a friend blah blah blah. Usually, she could care less about how her bluntness affected those around her. It’s a trait she’s carried with her since childhood and coupled that with her indifferent tone and even colder eyes, you’ve got yourself a stone-cold bitch. 

But, for some reason, her therapist’s words suddenly pop in her head again as she watches Leon scan the computer.

‘We’re in this together.’ That’s what he told her right? He said it with a genuineness she hadn’t encountered for a long time, not since her escapades with Troy. Sneaking off to the park, blowing off training when their father was distracted, and playing dangerous games of ice tag. A game that they both knew was rigged because Icarus was the better skater. ‘We’re partners,’ he told her on the night of his high-school graduation. ‘We’re always gonna be in this together. You and me against that shitty old man.’ Icarus and Troy Gray against the world. The misfits, the outcast, the fuckups. 

And then he left and never came back. 

**‘You aren’t in this together,’** her mind whispers. **‘That’s not we were taught. You survive alone. People slow you down.’**

**‘I’ll ditch him eventually,’** she reasons with herself and somewhere along the lines of her thinking, a kunai had made its way into her fingers and twirled around with familiar expertise. **‘I’ll ditch him and find my shitty sister and leave. I’ll probably never run into him ever again. He’ll probably die. Who cares.”**

Icarus doesn’t. 

“You ready?” 

Mustering a breath, she says, “Ready as I’ll ever be.” 

❖ ❖ ❖

All of the hallways are weirdly connected, Icarus learns. One way or another. After pulling out her kunai from the licker they so lovingly encountered earlier, she finds that the hallway leading to the S.T.A.R.S room had a door that leads to the Lounge which leads to the Library. The library was a marvel on its own instantly catching Icarus’s attention as she eyes the tall shelves. 

There’s a row of stairs on each side and some pathways that lead to even _more_ rooms. She didn’t feel like thinking. 

“This is so fucking weird,” she finally says after switching her gaze to the fallen corpse on the floor. Its brains are scattered on the floor smeared with oozing blood that painted the floorboards red. God, she was gonna be in therapy much longer than she thought. “Why the fuck is there a library in a Police Station?” 

They both know the answer but Leon humors her anyway,” Aesthetic purposes.” 

“Didn’t work, still a shitty place,” she responded flatly. “What the hell are we doing anyway?” 

“Well since we have the battery and the detonator we get the last medallion,” Leon says as he leads them into the Main Hall. He makes a beeline towards the chest pushed into the corner and Icarus makes herself comfortable on a vacant desk as he rummages through it. “I also need to stop at the art room for something.” 

“Should we split?” 

“Fuck no,” comes the immediate response and she blinks in surprise. “You’re injured and you only have those throwing knives-” 

“Kunai,” she corrects quickly. 

“-and with lickers roaming around you’re as good as dead.” 

“You saying I can’t defend myself,” there’s a warning edge in Icarus’s voice that Leon must pick up on because he stops his rummaging to turn and faces her with a leveled look. It’s the same look he gave her not that long ago when asking about her injury, and she did not doubt that he was fully prepared to talk about how weak she was with her stupid injury-

“Did your father ever train you to fight Lickers?” 

Icarus gives a slow blink. Well, she hadn’t expected _that._ “What?” 

“Your father,” he repeats. “Did he train you to fight Lickers or Zombies?” 

She gives a shake of her head. “No.” 

“Exactly.” He turns back to the chest and resumes his searching. “There are all types of shit we’ve probably haven’t even encountered yet and I bet your kunai won’t be much against it. I’m not saying you can’t defend yourself but goddamn it none of us are invincible against those _things_ out there and it’s no good to send you out there without at least a better weapon. A gun or crossbow, I dunno but for now, I’m not letting you venture out there on your own to get killed.” Leon finally finishes with a quiet huff of exasperation. 

“Sounds like you care about me.” 

“I do.” He responds honestly, and easily like it was nothing. Like it was fucking simple. Man as if this night couldn’t throw her enough fucking curveballs, Kennedy alone was throwing her at least twenty. “Alright, I got the detonator.” He flips it over in his hands and pops the back open before sliding the battery he found earlier into place. He places the top back on and it settles with a quiet click. 

“We can’t just skip past what you just said.”

Leon looks up, brows furrowing.”About what?” 

“You know what.” 

He glances down at the object in his hand, flips it over, and glances back up. “The detonator?” 

Fucking hell. 

“Not the fucking detonator,” she hisses and kicks herself off the desk. The woman walks so that she’s inches away, dark eyes swirling with an emotion she can’t quite place. Leon looks genuinely startled, unprepared for the sudden switch up, and hostility. “You said you cared about me,” she repeats.

_(She doesn’t care, right?)._

“I do.” 

“We just met,” she shoots back harshly. “You haven’t even known me that long.” 

“Don’t have to,” he responds simply, and there’s that look again. She can’t place it but it’s starting to make its appearances and it destroys any image she’s been trying to build of this so-called Leon Kennedy. She gets it, he could be nice, _stupidly_ nice, and trusting, but going as far as to _care_ about her? Fucking bullshit. “I’ve known you long enough. That’s all it takes.”

Finally, she says, “I’m not a good person, Kennedy.” 

And of course, he just fucking _smiles._ A wry thing that doesn’t lift his cheeks but makes the ice in his eyes burn brighter. He looks tired but determined. Quietly, he murmurs,” It doesn’t matter, Icarus.” 

It does. It should because she _isn’t_ a good person. She’s lied and betrayed and backstabbed and manipulated and she’s so fucked no matter how much therapy she takes, she doesn’t see any change coming, and-

-he doesn’t care. God, when was the last time someone looked past her shield of fuck-ups without even batting an eyelash? 

Icarus pulls away. “We’re splitting as soon as we get out of this place,” she finally says. Her voice is cold. “Let’s go.” 

❖ ❖ ❖ 

They move in silence. 

Leon doesn’t offer any conversation as he leads them towards the Art Room with the shotgun in his hands. Nothing more than silence and rain and a blaring alarm because apparently, a fucking helicopter crashed into the building somewhere along the night. But there’s no trudging footsteps, no groans, and no howls. It should be a good thing, it’s how Icarus was taught to operate when doing a ‘mission’ or training. Conversation wasn’t important unless it was important or your lives at stake. 

She didn’t need to speak and she didn’t need Leon to speak either. Silence was fine. Silence was good. 

Instead of letting the buzzing in the back of her mind creep forward, she lets her eyes wander across the unexplored and foreign area. It’s empty, safe for the singular corpse with yet another bullet in its brain, and splayed on out the floor. 

Leon steps over it without a second thought and she follows suit with cautious eyes, body tense in case she had to make a break for it. When the corpse makes no show of moving, she releases a breath and follows Leon into the Art Room. 

There’s nothing special about it and it’s mostly empty. With the amount of stuff the Police Station she kept, she had at least expected some more art pieces stored up here. Leon says nothing as he walks over to the statue, pulls out a book, and gently places it in its left arm. 

A beat later and the arm pulls itself into place. Next, the right hand-holding a scepter she believed-rotates its palm upwards and unfurls its hand. Tentatively, Leon grabs the newly presented object and examines it. 

“Hm.” 

“We came up here for a scepter?” Icarus deadpans. 

Leon ignores her, a concentrated bunch in his brow as he flips the scepter over in his hand and presses down on something. There’s a quiet _click_ as the red jewel in the center pops out of place and into his palm. He stared at it in barely concealed wonder.

Icarus is bemused. “We came here for a jewel.” 

Leon shoves it into one of his pouches. “We’ll need it for later, let’s go.” 

❖ ❖ ❖ 

There’s a faint humming in the back of her mind that makes the hair on her arms stand on end as they venture closer towards the boarded-up bars in the West Storage Room. Nothing has changed in the fifty minutes they’ve last seen it. 

Icarus shifts on her uninjured leg and strains her ears. There’s the shuffling of Leon’s footsteps, the rhythmic tapping of rain outside. She tilts her head up, lips curling down as her eyes trail across the ceiling. 

Something is off. She couldn’t tell what but the feeling of them not being alone is persistent. Icarus prided herself on always being aware of her surroundings. Absorbing details and picking up on things that would be deemed meaningless for others.

So either Icarus was missing something, or there had been added variable while they were gone. 

_BEEP_

Icarus jerks at the noise, only given a second to snap out of her thoughts by Leon grabbing her wrist and dragging her behind a stack of cages. He tugs her down, his arm curling protectively over her shoulders as the beeping increases in series. 

_BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP_

**_BOOM_ **

There’s a plume of dust that fills the room as debris goes flying. The ground quivers for a few seconds, a feeling she doesn’t focus too hard on as a loud yowl reaches her ears. Her eyes dart to the ceiling, frantically searching until they find their target. 

“Fuck,” she breathes in quiet resignation. Of course, it had to be directly above her. She isn’t given time to think, only to react. Her foot moves backward, sending her careening into Leon’s side as the Licker drops down onto the spot she once occupied. 

The Licker lets out an ear-piercing screech and Icarus yelps as something rough and slimy wraps around her ankle. Pain explodes from her back as she’s yanked off her feet and promptly knocked down. 

“Icarus!” 

“I’m fine, just watch your six!” Icarus shouts as she scrambles for her combat knife. Her fingers find purchase around the hilt of the weapon just as she’s dragged forward. Its hand (Claws?Talons _?what-fucking-ever_ ) poise to slash, but she’s quicker, jamming the combat knife into the side of its throat. Blood spurts across her face as she jaggedly drags it across its throat until the tongue on her releases and she scrabbles from underneath its weight. The Licker squeals pitifully, a high-pitched wretched noise that is abruptly cut off by a shotgun blast. 

The explosive noise almost makes her flinch but she fights against it, instead forcing out a harsh breath through her nose and curling her hands into fists. 

“Fucking hell,” she says when catching wind of the zombie laid out on the floor not even a foot away. “This place is really trying to kill us, shit.” 

“Yeah,” Leon echoes softly and stretches a gloved hand out towards her. She stares at it for a minute, lips twisting into a frown before she takes it. He pulls her up with little effort. “You alright?” 

Icarus steps away, swiping the blood from her face with barely concealed disgust. Some of it comes off but the rest smears further across her face. “I’m just glad that shit didn’t get in my mouth.” 

“You almost died,” he feels the need to point out and she shrugs. 

“I’ve almost died plenty of times in childhood, Kennedy, the only difference here is,” she squats down to pull the combat knife out of the dead licker and makes an off-handed gesture towards it,” that.” When she realizes the darkness of her words, she tries to alleviate it by adding on,” It’s usually my brother behind it.” 

She pockets the knife and turns to face him. He’s watching her with an unreadable expression before he carefully asks, “Your brother has tried to kill you... _multiple_ times?” 

“Mhm,” the woman nods. “Most of the scars I have are either from Troy’s stupid ass, or my other siblings, or training.” She swipes the blood running down her chin and for a split second her eyes soften with a distant fondness. “We used to play this game called Hide and Stab.” 

“Sounds….fun,” Leon finally says after noticing the complete and utter seriousness in Icarus’s eyes. “And a little fucked up.” He tacks on after a beat of awkward silence. 

The honesty from Leon made Icarus feel a lot better than she had expected. She was well aware that her childhood wasn’t the most average, with no white-picket fence and frolicking laughter. She had no qualms in making it none to others, but their pitying stares and sad smiles at the revelation just didn’t sit right with her at all. There was no look of pity on his face, just that of neutrality. Icarus doesn’t comment on it, nor does she focus on the stupid relieved feeling she gets from not being judged or pitied.

“I’ll have you know that most of my childhood that I remember wasn’t all that bad,” she says casually as he to lead them inside their newly formed entrance. Inside the accessed room, The Maiden Statue awaits, poised delicately. The medallion is engraved around her hip, and from the looks of it Icarus's kunai would not be prying it out anytime soon. 

There are also at least six dead bodies strewn across the floor. Blown to shit and thankfully unmoving. 

“What don't you remember, if you don’t mind me asking?” There’s a distracting hum from Leon as he flips through his notebook and fiddles with something off to the side. She doesn’t focus on his movements through and settles for taking in the detail of the medallion. The soft intricate lines and smooth curves. 

“I’m missing like an entire year,” responds Icarus with a steady voice. “I don’t remember shit from when I was nine and according to Apollo, that’s when things were really bad. Training and shit got worse but...all I have is muscle memory. It’s fuzzy and faint, and that's kinda unusual with a sharp memory like mine. I can tell you every single detail of my childhood bedroom, and the exact hour we found out my Dad lost his job, but... it's just gone. Things are pretty spotty from when I was thirteen too, Troy swears up and down I ran away but I don't remember shit."

Her eyes widen when a ring around the medallion swirls smoothly and the object pops out into her hands. 

“I know how that feels,” he suddenly says and she turns to face him. He keeps his eyes downward, hands busy with reloading. It’s a distraction, she knows, but she doesn’t call him out on it. “I was in an uh really bad car accident about five years ago.” 

Icarus should stop him right now because she didn’t care, right? None of this information was going to matter when they split ways because he’s gonna go and get himself killed like an idiot. She didn’t even know why she told him about her repressed childhood, hell, _Eli_ didn’t even fucking know and she practically told him everything. 

**‘I don’t care,’** she thinks harshly, and she opens her mouth to tell him to shut the fuck up because she didn’t care. She didn’t care about his stupid childhood and how he understood and he didn’t care about her because that’s just how the world works. Strangers don’t just _care_ for each other. Her family barely even cared for her and they’ve known her entire goddamn life. Eli didn’t care and they were supposed to be in it together. 

**‘I don’t care,’** she thinks a bit more desperately, but she lets Kennedy continue anyway.

“It was my Aunt Alessia’s birthday and we were driving home with two of my cousins and my Uncle and the car just spiraled.” He gives a small laugh of disbelief. “Spiralled right into a ditch and my cousin wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.” The empty look on his face doesn’t feel right as he continues. “I don’t remember anything after that, but mom says we were upside down for 12 hours. I-uh- don’t remember my stay at the hospital either. Doctor says I was lucky to be alive, and they only found me cause I was screaming or something." 

Fuck. 

“Now I’m the one bringing up unpleasant memories,” she mutters and flips the medallion over in her hand. Icarus shoots him a sideways glance and says, “At least we’re bonding over our repressed trauma.” 

That brings out a snort. “God, you’re really bad at comforting.” 

“Do you want me to hug you?” 

“Would you?” 

“No.” 

His surprised bark of laughter rings through the air, probably alarming every zombie and Licker within the vicinity but the accomplished feeling that washes over is too much for her to care. It's a nice sound, she'll admit, but she'll take that thought to the grave before she'd ever admit that shit out loud. Icarus flips the medallion over again and passes it over to him.

“So what the hell are we supposed to do with these medallions?” Icarus asks when he slips the thing into his pouch. She doesn’t question how the hell it even fit. Probably a fucking pocket dimension. 

His eyebrow arch at her words. “Were you even listening when I told you earlier?” 

“Honestly?” 

“Yes.” 

“Not at all,” she shrugs. “I heard unicorn blah blah blah underground exit blah blah blah museum blah blah plan and that’s about it.” 

“Of course, I appreciate your wonderful attentiveness.” He intones cheerfully, and she resists the urge to wrap her hands around his neck and choke the shit out of him. Fucker. “C’mon, the rest of the medallions are in the chest in the Main Hall.” 

The rest? God, Icarus didn't even know Kennedy had collected everything. She seriously needed to get her shit together. 

He pulls out his map, and takes lead, casually stepping over the collapsed Licker and muttering something underneath his breath. He pauses in front of a toppled over a bookcase that blocked the door, tucks the map away, and says, “Hey, come help me with this.” 

“You can lift that yourself,” she mutters but walks over anyway. The woman ducks into the little space available and presses her back against the rows while Leon grabs the side. “On three.” 

“One.” 

“Two.” 

The bookcase creeks weakly against their combined forces and it doesn’t take long for it to be pushed upwards and into its rightful place. She pushes the door open, squinting as her vision is flooded with the warmth of light. 

“So The West Storage Room leads to the Library,” she concludes and adds it to her mental map. “This place is a fucking maze.” 

“The Goddess Statue is on the first floor. You alright to take the ladder?” 

Icarus rolls up her shirt to check her side which had long gone numb with a buzzing type of pain. The deepness of her wounds wasn’t that severe and possibly only the third-worst injury she’s ever received in life and therefore, much easier to ignore. "I'm fine." 

If anything, it appeared as if Leon fretted more about the injury than she did, which was stupid since he was barely considering his own well being. **‘An idiot’** she thinks as she watches him climb down the ladder. **‘An idiot that’s gonna get himself killed.’** Her mind chimes in as she climbed down after him. 

“You cleared this room?” Icarus eyes the corpses littered across the floor like scattered paper and traces one of the kunai attached to her waist. The feel of cold steel soothes her creeping but rightful paranoia.

“Yeah, but keep an eye out just in case.” 

She keeps her distance and footsteps light, her eyes scanning and ears straining for any signs of danger. 

They stop at the item chest first where Leon searches for a few moments and produces two more medallions. Icarus eyes them skeptically, “I still don’t understand how the fuck this place has an entire underground tunnel system going on with magic medallions like some goddamn video game but okay.” 

“I’d make an awesome video game character, I have you know,” he huffs as tucks away the medallion and slams the chest shut. “I’d be like, the main character who everyone loves.” 

“Because of your stupidity?”

“Because of my good looks and charm,” he shoots her a smirk over his shoulder, undeterred by her utterly unimpressed stare. They stop before the Goddess Statue as Leon continues, “and I actually did alright on most of my tests in The Academy, so smarts too.” 

“How well is alright?”

“Top of my class.” 

“So better than alright,” she confirms because of course, Kennedy would choose at that moment to be fucking humble. Something odd bubbles in her chest, a warm and fuzzy feeling that she douses with cold water as she watches the rookie work. A silence passes between them that she barely notices as her eyes trail up and over the statue standing over them.

And then suddenly, there’s a click as the last medallion is put in its place followed by shifting and sliding as the Statue undoes itself to reveal an entrance. Leon presses the chipped white gate open, missing how Icarus winces at the low creak and flicks his flashlight on to peer into the darkness. 

He tilts his head. “So it goes underground, huh.” Leon steps to the side to give her a better view. “Guess this is our way out.”

Icarus shifts closer to scrutinize the hallway, eyes only catching nothing but darkness and plumes of swirling dust. The longer she stares, the more the darkness seems to expand into an endless tunnel. Yeah, _fuck_ that. 

“You sure there’s no other way?”

Her shift in tone earns his undivided attention and a lifted brow. “You scared?” 

“It’s a creepy dark hallway. What the fuck am I supposed to do, walk down it while fucking whistling?” She hisses defensively, with a scowl. 

“Well, no, but you just fought two lickers and dealt with a fuck ton of zombies without even blinking an eye.” His tone is that of disbelief and sends her even more on edge. She wasn’t scared, no, just wary of what awaited them. Cautious of the walls closing in on her, of the darkness choking her, and a familiar voice telling her that she would be forced to stay until she learned to not fuck up anymore. To be better. To last longer. To stop crying. 

“I’m not scared,” Icarus answers truthfully because Icarus Castellanos didn’t get scared. It was a sign of weakness and weakness was beaten out of her a long time ago. “Just rightfully paranoid. You realize black people always die first in horror movies, right?” 

_“Icarus.”_

She turns her nose up, flicking her gaze away. “I’m not walking down that shit,” she takes a careful step back. “I’ll find another way.” 

“Then I’ll come with you,” He insists stubbornly, and the urge to choke the life outta him returns with a stupid fucking vengeance. When was the last time she had encountered someone who wanted to stick around for so long? Willingly? 

**‘Never.’** A voice in her head whispers as she stares into expectant pristine eyes; it sounds a lot like her own but...smaller, maybe younger, she hadn’t heard it in a long time. She tells it to shut the fuck up. It continues anyway, **‘Cause you always push everyone away.’**

“Well?” 

“Fuck off, Kennedy, I said no.” 

The silence between them stretches for an uncomfortably long moment. There’s a small part of her, Icarus admits, a very small and minuscule part of her that _maybe_ couldn’t handle the narrowness of the hallway, the complete and utter darkness that undoubtedly awaited her the minute she stepped foot on the stairs. Uneasy. Yeah, that would be a good word, because she wasn’t scared. Fear was beaten out of her a long time and if she got scared now, if she felt this stupid thing called _fear_ , it would’ve been all for fucking nothing. 

The rookie passes the flashlight over to one hand and extends his free hand out towards her. 

Her eyebrows lift in confusion, shoulders hunching as she resists the urge to curl into herself. “What the fuck do you want, Kennedy?” 

“Take my hand.” 

“Oh, fuck you,” she scoffs while shooting him a withering glare. “You’re an asshole.” 

“I’m being serious.” 

Icarus scans face, searching and searching and fucking searching for the joke. For his face to break into a cruel smirk and for him to laugh at her childishness, her weakness. But he doesn’t. His face remains smoothed out in a serious determination as if they were talking about life or death instead of...whatever the fuck _this_ is. 

His hand never wavers as he quietly says, “You can trust me, Icarus.” 

And she can’t because she doesn’t _know_ him. This would go against everything she was taught, everything she learned, and everything that was drilled into her. Don’t trust anyone, no friends, no family, and only yourself. It was a fucked up world and everyone will betray you for their own selfish gain. 

**‘Remember what happened last time you trusted someone.’** Her mind chimes in helpfully, cold and unrelenting. **‘You got hurt. He was supposed to love you. They were supposed to care for you.’**

Coming to this decision should’ve been difficult. She knew what her answer was going to be. She was going to say no and she was going to ignore whatever reaction Kennedy gave her and she was going to go right through those front doors, find her sister, and never see him ever again because he was _nothing._

Because she didn’t fucking care. 

And Icarus was going to say just that. 

“Fuck you, Kennedy,” she hisses harshly and takes his stupid outstretched hand. “You tell anyone about this and I’ll kill you.” 

The threat is open and so fucking meaningless that he instead shoots her a beaming smile and uses their intertwined hands to tug her closer. His fingers are startlingly warm, and she doesn’t mention how his thumb swipes over the back of her hand. ~~Comforting~~. 

“I won’t tell a soul.” He chirps all too happily, and it isn’t mocking but _genuine_. Fuck. _Fuck_ she fucked up, and she shouldn’t have but goddamn it she can’t go back now. “We’ll be fine, Icarus, I promise.” 

Icarus didn’t _do_ promises. She didn’t make them and she didn’t believe in them. 

“If we die I’m kicking your ghost ass and dragging you straight to hell by your fucking balls.”

But she's already made one exception tonight. Another one couldn't hurt in this shithole anyway.

Her words don’t fall on deaf ears but are still taken lightly, his grin turning cheeky as he says, “Yes ma’am.” 

And without another word, they descend into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted an excuse to write them holding hands without it ending in Icarus punching Leon in the throat or folding him like a piece of paper.


	8. Heard A Scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leon and Icarus deal with Birkins and try not to die. And feelings. Complicated feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all life has been gripping me by my goddamn edges but my no-cry streak is 33 days strong and I will NOT break that shit.

Icarus’s hand is cold in his.

It’s cold and clammy, a complete contrast to his own but it only makes him squeeze her hand to ease her unsettled nerves as the entrance behind them closes and floods the area in complete darkness. She was scared, he knows, it wasn’t obvious but their time spent together had him quickly learning the cues and scoffs that made up the enigma of the woman named Icarus Castellanos. 

The fear was irrational, his brain chimes in helpfully. But someone has hurt her before, hurt her deep enough that she felt the need to retreat and hiss like an injured predator whenever she felt remotely threatened or thought she needed to show vulnerability. He wasn’t going to corner her. He wasn’t going to force anything out of her either. 

He wanted to...be there. Even though right now, surviving should be the only thing on his mind, finding out what the fuck is going on the other, but Icarus was his partner-a woman shrouded in mystery and dry quips-and for some reason, he couldn’t stop her from wandering into his mind no matter how hard he tried. 

He navigates them carefully, focusing in on her controlled breaths and keeping his flashlight aimed straight ahead for any signs of movement. The descending stairs aren’t dreadfully long, the illusion of never-ending steps being shattered when his light lands on the final step. 

When they finally step foot into the room, Icarus hits a switch and everything is flooded with light. He puts away his flashlight and scans the new room. The air is stale but everything is wiped clean without a single ounce of dust. It’s neat and untouched with the exception of a cluttered desk in the center of the room. 

There’s another doorway to the far right that Leon leads them to with a paranoid caution, his thumb absentmindedly drawing circles and swiping across her knuckles. Icarus never pulls away or comments on it, so he takes it as a good sign. 

“It’s an elevator,” Icarus mutters when they stop in front of it. There’s only one button available so he reaches forward and presses it, watching as the entryway slides open smoothly for them to step inside. He does so, and Icarus wordlessly slips her hand away, stepping back to fold her arms and lean her head back against the wall. The button glows a dim yellow when he presses it, the elevator doors sliding shut and going into motion. 

He turns to face Icarus, taking full advantage of her eyes slipping shut, and allowing his own gaze to rake over her silvery hair, the blood on her cheek, and finally settling on the tattoo on her neck. With a bit of inspection, he could see the inky tendrils of what appeared to be a sun. Interesting.

“Ask away.” 

That snaps him out of his thoughts, “Huh?” 

Icarus’s eyes are still closed but the intense aura never dies as she drones, “I can hear your mind racing at a million miles per hour and it’s irritating so just ask.” 

His cheeks burn at the flat observation. Could she really read him so easily? Was he that open? It was amazing how she saw straight through him but he couldn’t get past her reinforced stone walls at all.

“What does the G on your back stand for?” He blurts out before he lost his nerve, curiosity burning at his gut like churning acid. It isn’t the only question he wanted to ask, he had a million, but for now, he would settle for something simple. 

“Gray.” 

“Gray?” He echoes confusedly. “Why Gray?” 

The elevator halts to a stop. 

“Something of the past,” she mutters and gestures for him to walk forward first. He does so unhooking the shotgun from his back and holding it with one hand, his flashlight in the other. “It was more of a...shitty congratulations for ‘completing’ my training, all of us had to get it.” Leon picks up on the faint bitterness in her tone and doesn’t comment on it. 

“....so it’s a family thing?” 

“It’s a family thing.” The woman confirms and her tone of voice gives him the feeling that he wasn't going to be able to ask any more questions for a while. 

He ignores it. “But what does Gray mean?” 

“What is this, twenty-one questions?” 

“Technically, I’m asking you different variations of the same question, and you’re just giving me different answers.” He chirps back happily, making sure to shoot a smile over his shoulder in response to the frightening glare she was burning into his skull. 

“If I answer will you stop bugging me?” 

“...sure,” he lies evenly, leading them down the descending stairs. There’s a grenade on the floor, that he happily clips onto his belt. He makes a brief note of the locked away weapon piece and then tries the gate awaiting them. It barely budges. Upstairs it is. 

“You’re a shit liar, Kennedy.” The woman huffs but after a beat of silence she amends, “It’s our family name.” 

Family name, huh? 

“So….Castellanos?” 

“Are these questions ever going to stop?” Icarus drawls sharply as they round up the stairs and he shrugs. 

“I wanna get to know you.” 

“Of course you do.” Her tone is scathing, and maybe a little bit annoyed but she hasn’t tried to stab him or anything so Leon would count that as a win. “I hate you.” 

Cheerfully, Leon responds, “We just held hands.” 

“Fuck you.” 

The area around them abruptly changes as they pass through a doorway, and his ears are instantly greeted with the sound of hissing steam. His eyes dart to and fro, taking in the various forms of pipes and machinery and undulating smoke. 

Without warning, Icarus yanks his hand and pulls him down into a crouch with a quiet ‘ _shh.’_ He clamps his mouth shut immediately, eyes flickering up to the walkway above them when Icarus utters, “Above us.” 

For a long minute, there’s nothing, only hissing smoke and swirling steam. He doesn’t move though, keeping his eyes trained above until he hears _it_. 

Hurried footsteps. Soft, pained moaning. A huge shadow passes over them with heavy footfalls and it takes a moment for Leon to recollect his thoughts because _what the fuck._

Icarus shares his sentiments. “What the fuck?” 

“We need to get you a gun.” He finally says when they both rise to their feet. He brings his gaze down to shoot a wary glance over his shoulder. Icarus looks a bit distracted as she cocks her head to the side. Her steely eyes are still trained above with razor-sharp focus as if she’s searching for something that isn’t there. “Icarus.” 

“Hmm?” They lock eyes and the intensity of her stare dies down just a smidge as she raises a brow. “You say something?” 

“Nevermind.” He shakes his head and faces ahead. “Let’s just hope we don’t have to deal with whatever the hell that was.” 

“I dunno we both seem to have really shitty luck as of late." 

“Fair point.” 

The shotgun in his hand isn’t as comforting as it was when he first got it, but the weight does a little to soothe his nerves. Icarus’s quiet presence helps a little too, when he remembers to focus on her quiet breathing, instead of straining to hear her footsteps. 

As they navigate deeper into wherever the fuck they were, their walkway splits into two separate pathways. Icarus comes to stand next to him and looks to the left where a mini blockade sat. Leon walks forward a little more and looks to the right where a toppled-over cabinet fell in front of another entrance. He could definitely move it. 

“I’ll try and move it. You stay here and keep watch.” 

“Oh, you finally trust me to handle myself? Who would’ve thought.” Icarus rolls her eyes but steps back to lean against the railing. Leon shakes his head with a bemused smile and cautiously approaches the toppled over cabinet while scanning for any signs of well...anything he guessed. 

So far, this place took the record for holding the least zombies and blood on the walls but he had a feeling his good ‘Kennedy Luck’ was going to kick in some time soon and bite him right in the ass. 

Bracing his hands against the cabinet, he begins to pull the thing up with a quiet grunt. It takes a few seconds for the cabinet to be righted into place and when it does, Leon takes a step further into the room to get a better look around. 

And of course, because God absolutely hates his fucking existence, something drops own from seemingly nowhere and roars right into his face. 

“What the-” 

Everything happens in a blur. One minute he’s standing, neck craning up to stare up at whatever the _hell_ this thing was, and the next he’s on his back with its human hand wrapped around his throat and slamming him against the metal platform. 

_Once._

‘ _Definitely going to bruise.’_ He thinks. 

_Twice._

His vision explodes with stars as his head collides against the platform. Ouch. 

_Three times._

By the fourth bodyslam, the platform gives completely and they’re both free-falling for a few seconds. Landing is painful, his vest thankfully absorbing a good amount of the fall and not sending him straight to unconsciousness. 

Rising unsteadily to his feet, he finally gets a full few of whatever the fuck this thing was before him. 

Leon couldn’t believe he thought Lickers were bad. He had prayed and hoped that they would be the worst creature of this hellish night. But, no, God just really wanted to fuck with him tonight. 

He’s vaguely aware of the quiet shouting above him as the world around him blurs out of focus. His mind couldn’t even comprehend whatever the fuck this thing, no what this _monstrosity_ was before him. 

He should move. He knows he should. Every fiber within his very being was telling him to move but his body wasn’t reacting. All he could focus on what was left of this creature _._ An uneven split of man and monster. The right side nothing but a grotesque mess of mutation and protruding muscle. It pulsed like a heartbeat. 

Pain blossoms in his shoulder. 

His world drowns with sound. 

“Kennedy fucking _move your ass or I swear to God-”_

He snaps into action and darts back to avoid a sloppy swing, wincing at the sound of metal scraping against metal. He doesn’t think as he pivots on his heel and dashes away, adrenaline coursing through his veins quicker than lightning. 

There is the sound of footsteps behind him but they’re sluggish and grow fainter as he fuels more power into his legs and puts more distance between them. He rounds one corner and then another, hands reloading the shotgun with precise movements. 

After a brief moment of contemplation, Leon presses himself against a wall of pipes and machinery, ignoring the steam that brushes his face, and takes a moment to himself. He needed a moment to sit and think, to plan, and fucking _breathe_ but from the pained moaning in the not so far distance he didn’t have the time he wanted nor the time that he needed. 

“Words definitely won’t fucking work on this thing,” he mutters to himself as he assesses his supplies. With Icarus who was scarily accurate and precise with her throwing knives-no kunai, they were called kunai-he had been able to conserve a bit of ammo leaving him with ten shotgun shells and about twenty bullets for Matilda. 

Two flashbangs; one grenade. 

He takes a slowing breath and tunes in on the shuffling footsteps. “Make it work, Kennedy, make it work.” 

He levels the shotgun and steps out of his hiding place. The creature had its back to him, head clutched in one hand as the pole hung limply from its monstrous hand. A plan formulates in his head. 

It’s risky, and probably stupid but fuck it. 

Steeling his nerves, Leon unclips the flashbang from his belt, pulls the pin, and pitches it forward. The pin rolls, landing right between the gap in the monster’s legs, and explodes with blinding light.

**_BANG_ **

The ringing in his ears is disorienting, but with his added distance it was manageable and easier to power through as he rushed forward. 

He oddly feels calm as he raises the weapon to aim.

_Breathe. Lift a bit higher. Yeah, right for the head._

He wraps his finger around the trigger. 

_Now shoot._

And pulls. 

_Inhale. Exhale. Repeat._

He gets another shot in before it rises to its feet and whirls around to face him with a wild swing. The pole scratches against the pipes with a painful screech sending sparks flying and causing the metal environment around them to twist and contort from the opposing force. Jesus fuck-

A bulbous eye flickers around, wide and glossy before finally settling on him. It’s a hideous thing, ugly enough to give nightmares for the next few years but most importantly-

“Weak point.” He mutters as he backpedaled, opting to reload the shotgun and then switch to Matilda. He doesn’t look back. Just keeps his ears strained and eyes searching for any stray ammo and herbs. 

20 bullets. Eight shotgun shells. Make it count. 

Somehow, in the heat of the battle, the thought of Icarus and her safety doesn’t slip his mind but he doesn’t bother focusing on it too hard considering there was a big monster on his ass. She was better off above than down here with him anyway. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Leon mutters when he hits a dead end with the creature not so far behind him. One smack from that pole and he’s as good as dead. Quickly backtracking, he runs down another path as he once again reassesses his supplies. 

Twelve bullets. Six shotgun shells. 

“One grenade. One flashbang.” He lists off as the footsteps grow near. He’s entered a more open space now, which should hopefully prove to be more useful with keeping his distance and aiming. His eyes scan the area, trailing over the low railing that sectioned off the rest of the room. He didn’t need to peer over to know about the spiraling abyss of darkness below. 

“God-fucking damn it!” A familiar voice grunts and Leon jolts at the sound. “Stay away from me you _ugly motherfucker_!” 

“Icarus?” He mutters to himself and then panics. “Shit, Icarus!” 

Right on cue, Icarus appears into view a few feet away with the creature not too far behind her. When the hell? How the hell did she even get down here and attract its attention so fast? Fuck, her luck was worse than his. 

A mutated hand gives a dangerous swing, barely missing the woman by inches. It swings again and this time only misses by centimeters. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ New plan. New plan _now._

He couldn’t shoot, no no, he couldn’t take the risk of shooting her on accident. Flash grenade is probably his best bet. 

In an abrupt burst of speed, Icarus furthers the distance between her and her potential death, and barrels right past, grabbing Leon’s hand along the way.

Or they could just run, that works too. 

Thankfully, his legs don’t struggle to keep up with her almost inhuman speeds, his arm only protesting at the sudden jostling. They make a sharp left, and then another right, coming to an abrupt halt in a corner as steam clouds the room. Icarus drags them down into a crouch, her breathing shallow as she claps a hand over Leon’s mouth and waits. 

Heavy footsteps are the only indicator of the monster being near but miraculously, they venture further instead of closer. Leon bets they have only about a minute or so before it circles back since this place wasn’t that much of a maze, to begin with. 

When she removes her hand away, he immediately levels her with a glare. 

“What the _hell_ are you doing down here?” 

Icarus scoffs. “Something stupid since I came back for your ass.” 

Leon would laugh in pure disbelief if it weren’t for the threat of danger lurking so nearby, instead, he settles for a slow exhale through his nose. “You should’ve stayed up there it’s safer!” 

“Oh, yes, because you can lecture me about safety.” The woman rolls her eyes while shooting him a dry look. “You literally have a weapon in your fucking back.” 

“Haha very funny,” Leon replies, voice just as dry as he quickly reloads. “Whatever happened to ‘next time you space out I’ll leave your ass as bait?’”

“Fuck you I don’t sound like that.” Is the only response she manages before the sound of pained moaning causing them both to fall silent again. Voice falling even lower, the woman murmurs, “We need a plan.” 

“I had a plan,” Leon grumbles. 

He’s definitely not pouting. Not in this situation. 

“What shooting it to death?” 

“It was _working!”_ He replies defensively, and there goes the look of someone’s who entirely unimpressed by anything they’ve ever come across. “You got any better ideas?” 

“It’s a stupid one but,” Icarus trails off while rising to her feet. “I’ll lead it back to that open area and you-” 

“-can blow it to shit.” Leon finishes while gesturing to the grenade clipped to his belt. “Risky. We have to get it down if we're gonna do that. Its eye is a good weak point." 

Icarus nods, kunai twirling around her fingers. "Might have to circle around a few times before we get it down." 

"Just be careful." 

“I'll be fine.” Her tone is far too dismissive but he couldn’t bring himself to worry too much. “Be ready, Kennedy.” 

Steam hisses and swirls around them, covering Icarus’s entire form as she ventures deeper into what Leon prays isn’t her fucking doom. 

He waits for a beat or two before solidifying his nerves and heading out in the direction they had come from. Making the sharp twists and turns that eventually lead to the open space where Leon hoped to end things once and for all. 

He could only assume Icarus’s plan was working out since the lively racket and slew of insults traveled easily over the loud roars of frustration and metal screeching against metal. He doesn't know what to expect and as time ticks by, his worry only grows when Icarus has yet to appear and the cursing comes to a halt. Leon breathes out evenly, ignores the rapid beating of his heart against his ribcage, and waits. 

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

"C'mon, Icarus, c'mon, c'mon," he mutters to himself. He hears footsteps, loud and uneven clambering in his direction and it doesn't take long for the creature to appear into view. Icarus is there too, back to Leon as she fluidly dodges a poor swipe. Its human arm is twisted oddly, fingers bent in opposite directions and coloring with the beginnings of bruises. The monster lunges forward again and swipes at empty air when Icarus bends backward into a backhand spring, landing smoothly on her feet, and sends another kunai blurring forward.

Woah. 

Leon swears for a split second the weapon changes its trajectory to plant itself in the protuberant eye but doesn't have time to ponder about it when the creature falls to its knees and wails in pain. Icarus is fast, Leon notes, startling so, as she unsheathes her combat knife and rushes forward. He can't do anything but watch in awe as Icarus works efficiently, wrapping her hand around the hilt of the embedded kunai, and ripping it upward. She doesn't flinch away when a dangerous amount of blood splurts out, instead brutally tearing the kunai out with one hand and violently slashing its eye again with the other. 

Leon thinks she's going to go in for more, but without warning, Icarus halts and pulls back, swiveling around and making a beeline in Leon's direction. She skits to a halt when she's behind him and heaves out a quiet curse. _"Fuck._ " 

When the creature rises unsteadily to its feet, a lightbulb goes off just above Leon's head. "I have an idea." 

❖ ❖❖

Watching his enemy topple over the railing, even as it begs for mercy, sends a thrum of satisfaction through his entire body. Icarus is next to him, breathing a bit heavily, but they're both alive. Injured but alive.

"We make a good team." He shoots her a tired grin but it falls when he catches wind of the woman. She's staring at her bloodstained hand, her face a facade of emptiness except for the slight downturn of her lips. He reaches forward to clasp a hand around her shoulder and she snaps out of her daze, eyes wide with alarm and something else he can't quite place. "Hey, you alright?" 

"Yeah, I," she takes a deep breath and then exhales it. "It's been a while since I uh." Icarus shakes her head and wipes her bloodied hand on her pants. "I just need a minute." 

There's a quiet plea that Leon catches onto. His lips curl into what he hopes is a reassuring smile," It's fine, Ic, I think I saw some ammo awhile ago so I'll be right back." 

He rolls his shoulder, wincing at the pain that burns it, and heads off with one last look tossed in her direction. He makes sure to be thorough in his search, coming up with more shotgun ammo and a few herbs he takes time into grinding. About halfway through his search for additional supplies, Icarus joins him with quiet footsteps, an unfamiliar noise that sends a few alarm bells ringing.

Leon pauses in his searches to give Icarus a once over and is rewarded with the sight of the woman staring dazedly at her stained palm. Her eyes, usually sharp and trained, were out of focus as if recalling a distant memory or seeing something that wasn't there. Her fingers curl into a fist and then uncurl slowly, and Icarus gives a slow blink. 

Quietly, she mutters, "Someone is watching us." Wordlessly, Icarus turns on her heel and rushes away, her sudden mood shift completely catching Leon off guard. His mind only takes a few seconds to process the abrupt departure, only catching up when his body seemed to move on its own to trail after her. By the time he does, she's already clambering up some ladder that definitely wasn't there before and heaving herself up with ease no injured or overexerted person should have. 

"Icarus wait!" He shouts and is surprised when the woman halts in her tracks and peers down at him over the railing. The look she gives him is undecipherable but ignored as he climbs up the ladder, mind still reeling from everything that's just occurred. He doesn't think he's fully processed the situation yet, which is fine since it would only slow him down. "If someone is watching us they're probably long gone now." 

"That doesn't bother you?" 

Leon pulls himself up and huffs. Fuck, he was tired. "What?" 

"We were being watched," Icarus says and when they lock eyes, her shoulders are rigid, and teeth so obviously gritted it looked painful. She wrings her fingers together for a second and then wipes her palms on her pants. Slightly, something akin to a frown downturns her lips, and she finally settles on folding her arms. "Nevermind, they couldn't have gone far anyway. Let's take a break. You look like shit." 

He gives himself a once over and then another once over to Icarus. Now that things have calmed down, she didn't look particularly winded nor did she look injured. With the adrenaline flushed out of his system, he could feel the tell-tale feeling of bruises forming, but Icarus's face remained impassive, her posture now rigid straight as if never injured. Leon rises unsteadily to his feet and stifles a quiet groan. He needed a nap. And food. And probably like-five years of therapy. 

Speaking of therapy. Leon gives Icarus a cautious look and then hesitantly asks, "You sure you're okay?" 

Icarus exhales a small breath and mutters, "I'm fine, Kennedy, it barely touched me." 

"Well yeah I know but-" 

"Kennedy," Icarus quickly interrupts. "Let's just go. Please." 

Avoidance.

He's not quite sure if it's better than defensiveness. Icarus looks on edge, uncomfortable even, her fingers pressing against the kunai strapped to her belt in a possible attempt to settle her. Something was bothering Icarus, as much as she wanted to conceal it, but maybe the earlier fight made her forget to rebuild her walls. Maybe, whatever was bothering her was too pressing to hide, either way, it struck a nervous and worried chord within Leon. He didn't know what to do-or what to say, not with how wildly unpredicatble Icarus was. 

One minute she's asking him to ask a question, the next she's shutting him before he could even get close. One step forward. Two steps back. It bothered him, a little, that Icarus wouldn't let him in, but he knows she had secrets. He knows that not everything is meant to be brought to light, but fuck he wouldn't make the mistake of leaving her behind like he did all those years ago. Not again. 

"We don't have to talk about it now," he settles for saying carefully. The words fall out of his mouth tentatively, an action he hopes Icarus doesn't mistake as pity and take offense too. "But something is really bothering you, enough to distract you, and I don't want you to get like hurt or anything ya know? It's okay to talk about it later if you want to." 

"I-" A pause. Icarus wrinkles her nose. "You sorta sound like my therapist." 

"Is that...a bad thing?" 

Her shoulders rise and fall. "I don't wanna punch you so I guess not." 

"Good." He exhales a breath of relief and then grins." Cool. You ready to go?" 

"After that fucking shitshow? Hell yeah, let's get the fuck outta here." 

As they walk, Leon notes that Icarus's quiet presence seems closer. He doesn't mention it. 

"Hey, Icarus?" 

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you another question?" 

"Don't know why you bother asking when you're gonna ask anyway," she grumbles. "What is it?" 

"You know I could've handled that fight on my own, right? You didn't have to risk your safety." 

Icarus doesn't say anything for a long moment. "Would you have jumped down there if it were me instead of you?" 

He doesn't hesitate. "Of course." 

"Just cause you can handle shit on your own doesn't mean you have to do it alone. That shit sucks." She says flatly, her voice a perfect void of nothingness. "And we're supposed to be in this together or whatever. Your words, not mine. Just don't get too fucking comfortable rookie, I'll stab you when given the chance." 

Another curveball thrown but none other than Icarus herself. He doesn't know if it'll bring him a step forward or a step back, but for now, he could count it as a win. 

Leon doesn't even bother hiding the grin that splits his face. "Yes ma'am." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha so I sorta kinda forgot about Icarus's backpack??? Anyways, that boss fight took me like twenty years to write but I did do a quick speed run of Leon's route again and learned that Mr. X will forever be terrifying I hate him and his hat. 
> 
> Buuut, Leon's route is fresh in my mind again and that makes wiring much easier. My goal is to have another chapter out by the end of this month cause yolo


End file.
